Married Life

Married Life

Rated PG-13

Running time: 1 hr 30 mins

Cast:

Pierce Brosnan
Chris Cooper
Patricia Clarkson
Rachel McAdams

Critical Consensus:

*** out of *****
(58% Fresh Rating!)

Matt's Take:

Has Not Viewed

Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:

**1/2 out of *****

The premise:

A 1940s-set drama where an adulterous man plots his wife's death instead of putting her through the humiliation of a divorce.

MY REVIEW

Married Life is a very well acted film, and for most of it, is a well written one too. For me, it faltered in the end. This man wanted to kill his wife to spare her the embarassment of a divorce because he was in love with another woman. He wanted true love, not just a sexual love that his wife craved. Turns out she too fell in love with another man. In the middle of it all, we have the man's best friend who falls for the girl his friend is having an affair with. That's all this movie is really: people cheating on eachother and having affairs and confusing all that mess with true love. What bothered me the most was that the married man got stiffed by the woman he was having an affair with, and this for some reason made it click in his head that he shouldn't kill his wife because he really does love her. What?!?

Married Life starts off good, a sinister yet nice little premise. But it really just caves in the end. Which ruined the movie for me personally. Because the rest of the film is beautiful. Really great costume designs that feel like the 40's era. Perfect set designs. A wonderful musical score. Above average directing. The cast was just suberb in my opinion. Namely Oscar winner Chris Cooper (Adaptation). But none of that could be saved by the huge downward spiral the movie takes in the last act. To much internal emotional battles going on in the characters heads in so little time. To bad. Not one I'd honestly recommend.

To view this film's theatrical trailer, click this link: Married Life

*This is the 116th new film I've seen and reviewed this year.

*This film is now on DVD.