X
- 2021
- TV-MA
- HBO
- 2021
- TV-MA
- HBO
Summary The marriage between tech executive Mira (Jessica Chastain) and her philosophy professor husband Jonathan (Oscar Isaac) has been slowly falling apart in this five-episode limited series based on Ingmar Bergman’s Swedish series of the same name.
- 2021
- TV-MA
- HBO
- 2021
- TV-MA
- HBO
Scenes From A Marriage
Season 1 Premiere: Sep 12, 2021
70
7.6
Where to Watch
Summary The marriage between tech executive Mira (Jessica Chastain) and her philosophy professor husband Jonathan (Oscar Isaac) has been slowly falling apart in this five-episode limited series based on Ingmar Bergman’s Swedish series of the same name.
Where to Watch
All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
70
65% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
35% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
70
65% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
35% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
it's an acting tour de force, to be sure, impossible to look away from even when it's almost too difficult to watch. [13 - 26 Sep 2021, p.16]
It is not easy to watch, and you won’t want to do more than one episode at a time. ... Their [Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain's] performances earn Scenes from a Marriage its place at the table.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 33 User Ratings
7.6
85% Positive
28 Ratings
28 Ratings
9% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
6% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 33 User Ratings
7.6
85% Positive
28 Ratings
28 Ratings
9% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
6% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
"Western culture has very purposefully created these completely irrational expectations that marriage must be based on passion, on sex, on relentless emotional intensity, when it's so obvious that these things stem from novelty, so the whole concept's a complete fallacy."
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''I'll never love anybody the way that I loved you.''
Beyond the comparisons with Ingmar Bergman's excellent miniseries, I quite enjoyed this remake because of the incredible acting duel between Oscar Issac and Jessica Chastain.
My sister was also watching it, I don't know if she finished it, but she told me that she didn't understand how I was basically enjoying watching hours of discussions, which is true; Scenes of a Marriage are essentially 5 hours of a broken relationship, but it's not that easy after all.
Nothing's ever simple, that's for sure, especially when it comes to this kind of stuff.
If you have seen Ingmar Bergman's miniseries, you will not find an improvement here. I couldn't even be able to describe it as an alternative. The appropriate word I think would be to call it a variant.
A variant with very good quality.
It's HBO after all.
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One does not come to "Scenes From A Marriage" for plot, much of which is absurd. One comes for the acting, which is largely superb. ... Our sympathies have been upended, and the questions left in the wake of it all make for a viewing that's provocative, if sometimes dire.
Chastain and Isaac are the last performers to need a director’s flourishes to enhance their roles.
Updated to the 21st century, Scenes From A Marriage ran aground on the leads’ striking lack of chemistry. An inertness hung in the air between Chastain and Isaac, which made it hard to buy into the idea they had ever been happily married in the first place.
But because the series repurposes so much from Bergman, it would be impossible not to measure it against the original and find the new version somewhat lacking. The performances, as crucial here as they would be in a Shakespeare adaptation, are solid. ... It’s a better-than-average TV show adapted from a masterpiece that you can still watch in the comfort of your all-too-delicately constructed home.
The high-emotion sparring between stars Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain is spectacular and provides some reason for viewers to invest in this stressful series. ... The strangest thing is that Levi seems to be completely aware that he’s remaking this property in the least interesting way possible.
The 2021 5-episode version of Scenes from a Marriage is a remake loosely based on the 1973 Ingmar Berkman 6-episode TV series of the same name.
In the 1973 version, the husband and wife have a traditional relationship. In the 2021 version, the husband Johnathan Levy (played by Oscar Isaac) is a Jewish, stay-at-home dad with various feminine and immature characteristics (he was a virgin before meeting his future wife). The wife Mira Philips (played by Jessica Chastain) is a "product manager" for a technology company and is not a typical housewife/homemaker.
The acting, writing, directing, cinematography, editing, etc - are all very good. The reasons that this series languishes in a 7-rating purgatory is because of casting and dragging the husband's Jewish-heritage sub-plot into the script and other tangential things like the husband's asthma. Those side issues detracted from the over-all plot of the series. The casting of the husband and wife did not "click". I will say, that the original idea of casting Michelle Williams as the wife was an even worse casting decision. I can't imagine how such a bad casting decision came about. Although, I admit that Issac and Chastain seem like a reasonable casting idea on paper - they definitely do not work in this series.
Alternatively, Michael Aloni who plays Poli was an excellent casting choice to play the wife's boyfriend - even though he was much younger. The interaction of their personalities worked very well and seemed very natural. Their conflict seemed effortless and realistic.
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Regardless, the acting of Isaac and Chastain was so good, they went a long way to "selling" the relationship.
Perhaps the idea was to turn the 1973 version into a completely non-traditional 2021 version and that ambition threw the results off.
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Scenes from a Marriage teases the viewer in the first two episodes, threatening to explore and reveal a relationship without apologizing. And then, early in the third episode, the tone shifted and dullness overwhelmed the remaining episodes. Repetition may well be a marker in all relationships, patterns that help to define the partners' strengths and weaknesses. But this mini-series is repetitive to the point of medium - and the Chastain character suggests multiple personality disorder, so swift and unexplained are her moods, actions and self-righteous outbursts. Isaac's male begins with a sincerity and openness that commanded my focus, but then vocal mannerisms kicked in and too much of what followed was predictable and, sadly, annoying. These people are not especially fascinating - nor are they compelling enough to get past their self-absorption. Chastain, and maybe not is the writing rather than the actor, strikes attitudes that make no sense. Her escape to a younger man, played by Michael Aloni (totally wasted in a role that the writers couldn't breathe a nona-second's life into), served only to underline the threadbare ideas behind the hyper-real mumbling between Him and Her.
What a shame that the first two episodes couldn't inspire more than the sum of its parts.
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Hard to watch or care about!! The characters are poorly written, with no clear motivations and wild mood swings. They seem to have no life beyond what is shown and cannot form relations with anyone else, thus miserably coming back to each other in ways that are hard to stomach. Clearly a vanity project for HBO riding on the brand name of the 70s show and some in vogue actors. Don’t waste your time on it!!
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Production Company:
- Fifth Season
- Media Res
Initial Release Date: Sep 12, 2021
Number of seasons: 1 Season
Rating: TV-MA
Genres:
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 2 Nominations
Hollywood Critics Association Television Awards
• 1 Win & 5 Nominations
Gold Derby Awards
• 3 Nominations