Anachronistic is the best word to describe Married Life, which will be arriving at Landmark’s Edina Cinema on March 21st. The film’s frustratingly whimsical tone washes out its better, darker moments, leaving little to say about marriage.
Based on the 1953 pulp mystery novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven, the film follows the relationships and ethical dilemmas presented by a man and his wife, a man and his mistress, a wife and her lover, and the rakish friend that likes the mistress. The sum of those four parts is supposed to be some sort of conversation about marriage, but it never really emerges from its pulp mystery origins. What does emerge is a story you’ve seen before: Man decides to kill wife to be with mistress. I kept waiting for the movie to offer up something new, a new breath of life into a tired story, but ultimately it falls short.
The problem is rooted in the source material. Commenting on the reason he chose the story, writer/ producer/ director Ira Sachs explains, “I wanted to make a film that spoke gently and honestly about the complexities and intricacies of marriage and intimate life, and here was a plot—however outrageous it might seem—that in the end could do so in a way both direct and metaphoric.” Unfortunately the direction Mr. Sachs takes with the story, a split between whimsical and serious, is neither complex nor intricate, making it difficult to take the film seriously.
Mr. Sacks also thinks you’re an idiot. There is a constant, droning voice-over during the entire movie, and the characters are shallow and poorly developed. With only the slightest provocation they spout off their entire life stories, discussing relationships and feelings with the clumsy hands of the screen writer pulling the strings in abrupt, jerky motions.
The uncommonly talented cast does a lot to calm the uneven writing. Chris Cooper, the pain and disillusionment fused into every pore, delivers the sort of nuanced performance that we’ve come to expect from him. Rachel McAdams is similarly able to shock a semblance of life into Kay, the thinly written object of affection for both leading men.
The acting makes the darker moments of the film resonate, but it hits so many bad notes with its thin plot and whimsical execution that it’s difficult to take seriously. Ultimately the film neither chills, nor comments on marriage at all, but simply wilts away in mediocrity.