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Married Life
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Crime | Drama | Romance
Written by:
Oren Moverman
Ira Sachs
Directed by: Ira Sachs
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 7, 2008
DVD: September 2, 2008
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some thematic elements and a scene of sexuality
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, and Rachel McAdams
A wry blend of dark humor, romantic deception, and stylish melodrama--with an invigorating dash of suspense--Married Life is an unconventional fable for grown-ups about the irresistible power and utter madness of love. After decades of marital contentment, Harry concludes that he must kill his wife Pat because he loves her too much to let her suffer when he leaves her. Harry has fallen hard for the young and lovely Kay, but his best friend Richard wants to win Kay for himself. As Harry implements his maladroit plans for murdering his wife, the other characters are entangled with their own deceptions. Like Harry, they race toward their passions but trip over their scruples, seemingly well-intended toward all, but truthful to none. Married Life is an uncommonly adult film that surprises and confounds expectations. Although it plays with mystery, comedy, and intrigue, its ultimate concern is: "What is married life?" In its sly way, Married Life poses perceptive questions about the seasonal discontents and unforeseen joys of all long-term relationships. (Sony Pictures Classics)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Forty Shades of Blue
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
New York Magazine David Edelstein
In Married Life, Ira Sachs aims a bit lower than Green but obliterates his target: The funny, the scary, the campy, the sad--they’re all splendidly of a piece.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
It's a sly little fable with at least six very obvious homages to Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, and a dark little heart that happily hides under a double-breasted suit.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Married Life congratulates its audience on a sophisticated, humorous complicity in the obvious immorality of Harry's murder plans, as well as in Richard's own ungentlemanly designs on his pal's gorgeous girl. Every adult, the movie suggests, has got a secret.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
To a degree, the dynamic between Brosnan and Cooper resembles Aaron Eckhart and Matt Malloy's relationship from "In The Company Of Men."
Read Full Review >Premiere Ryan Stewart
A collection of Hitchcock character-types trample over each other to win at love in Married Life, a quirky but entertaining period murder farce.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson
It seems carefully calibrated to shock viewers out of a familiar frame of reference, while leaving nothing behind to take its place.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Is the movie about marriage, or sex, or murder, or the murder plot, or what? I'm not sure. It deals all those cards, and fate shuffles them. You may not like it if you insist on counting the deck after the game and coming up with 52. But if you get 51 and are amused by how the missing card was made to vanish, this may be a movie to your liking.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It's a drama with elements of black comedy and suspense, European in feeling but American in attitude. Just for fun, it's set in 1949, an era of glamour, of Hitchcock and of husbands even more clueless than they are today.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Chris Cooper, the consummate professional, has no trouble making viewers feel sympathy for a potential killer.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
It's all quite deftly played with a maturity and introspection that may take you by surprise, though Sachs is perhaps too restrained in parts.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
This isn't a film noir, but it hovers in the shadows of that genre of discontent and disillusionment.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
The tone, casting and material form a less-than-perfect match in Married Life, a period domestic drama that never quite decides if it wants to be a credible marital study, a noirish meller or a sly comedy.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
An engaging romance noir, a sort of updated "The Postman Always Rings Twice" that packs its surprises into four characters, none of them predictable.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Married Life is a tony, well-upholstered vehicle that glides smoothly toward its destination—but despite an unnecessary and overly sentimental coda, that destination isn't necessarily where you thought you were going all along.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
This is the sort of gallows humor that Hitchcock relished drawing out in cruelly amusing cat-and-mouse games, not to be taken too seriously. The same is true of Married Life. The murder plot is not to be taken any more literally than the lethal games of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
A faltering attempt at black comedy mixed with romantic melodrama, Married Life is always on the verge of being interesting but never quite gets there.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
With its 1950s decor and upbeat ending (clever camouflage all), Married Life probably won’t show up on the radar of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family anytime soon, but at the risk of supplying the enemy with ammunition, I have to say they might be giving a pass to one of the more ethically dubious films to come out of Hollywood in years.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
The pleasant surprise is Brosnan. Actually, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's seen "The Matador" or "After the Sunset." The former Remington Steele and James Bond is maturing nicely and choosing some complex scripts to show off his acting chops.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
None of these elements quite come together, and while the clothes and props look authentic, the acting doesn't.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Befitting a story about marriage, adultery and murder, all the characters in Married Life are constantly lying to each other. Sometimes they even lie to the audience.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Arch, wry and dry, with its exquisite wallpaper and impeccably blocked fedoras, Married Life is bracingly malicious noir for a while, a sort of gray-flannel-suit take on the Coen brothers' "Blood Simple." Every character seems morally capable of anything.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Albeit slumming with style and a fairly sharp scalpel. Married Life delights in peeling back the bright postwar social veneer to expose the characters' hidden agendas, and if this is a mystery movie, the mystery is other people.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
The appeal of the cast, the witty dialogue, the gorgeous costumes and production design, and the refreshingly grown-up subject matter can't be discounted. Maybe it is about compromise, after all, because though Married Life has its moments, it's bewildering as a whole.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
Though the imprint of Douglas Sirk is all over Sachs's homage to old movies about restless men in bad suits and untrustworthy women in lovely frocks, his immediate reference point is clearly Haynes's "Far From Heaven."
Read Full Review >Empire Staff (Not credited)
A quartet of great performances and gorgeous scenery go some way to compensating for some strange variances in tone.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Ultimately, the movie takes its characters, and the absurd ethical dilemma it subjects them to, far too seriously.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
More a case history than a devious puzzle, the movie is like a story overheard from the next restaurant booth: for all your curiosity as to how it turns out, you're not likely to have much personal investment in the people.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
A macabre comedy of manners with the sting of dry ice, this 2007 ensemble piece captures the social climate of America in the late 40s, when a new anxiety and restlessness began to undermine the postwar optimism.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rick Kisonak
Despite the cast's capable portrayals, it's difficult to connect with or care about any of these characters as, one by one, each stabs another in the back.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jay H. gave it a7:
Terrific cast, especially Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson. Compelling story, well directed. Good costumer and art direction, great score. Very interesting plot that held my interest throughout.
Stephen S. gave it a6:
If you reckon your partner’s been cheating, jolt them with this one. Ira Sachs’ debut neither aims for nor achieves greatness, but entertains well with its pleasing production design and measured but not unexpected plot turnings. Contrary to expectations, I thought Brosnan and McAdams were better served by their roles than Cooper and Clarkson. Cooper looks less well suited then he was in Breach, Clarkson doesn’t quite flow into the character as you would expect her to.
Johnny C. gave it a10:
Like most great films, this is a complex piece that often takes time and consideration -- and a second viewing -- Ira Sachs is an amazing filmmaker... the cinematic artist of this generation.
Chad S. gave it a6:
Call Kay(Rachel McAdams) the accidental femme-fatale. With that head of tightly-wounded platinum blonde hair, no matter how discreetly she enters the restaurant, in which two men sit; one married, one not, Kay can't help but cause a commotion. But Kay is depressed. Despite having the appearance of a sexually voracious woman who would drive an ice pick through a man's neck, she's actually a nice girl. She's looking for love, not money, which makes "Married Life" an atypical film noir. For starters, Harry(Chris Cooper) has a legitimate claim on his wife's life without ever knowing it. He almost commits a crime of incubating passion. What is going through Harry's mind when he looks outside the window of his bedroom? This is when the narrative in "Married Life" takes a wrong turn. It doesn't capitalize on the irony of the moment. Another matter to keep in mind is how the narrator(Pierce Brosnan) influences our feelings about Harry. Everything that could possibly go wrong for the protagonist, goes wrong, but "Married Life" breaks this most basic of tenets in film noir, when it confuses Richard's biased opinion about Harry(Richard justifies his friend's murderous intentions) with the cold, hard fact that he wanted his wife dead. Richard is a fallible narrator. Since he put a knife in his best friend's heart, he doesn't want to assasinate his character, too. The narration conspires with the narrator to make Pat look like the bad person. That's why "Married Life" goes out with a whimper, instead of a bang.
