Mature themes
USA/Canada 2007
Director: Ira Sachs
Featuring: Chris Cooper, Annabel Kershaw, Pierce Brosnan & Rachel McAdams
Language: English
Running Time: 90 minutes
The simple, straightforward title of the film Married Life has intimations that more is going on in the marriage of Harry, (Chris Cooper) and Pat, (Patricia Clarkson), than appears on the surface.
The year is 1949, and Harry confides over lunch to his friend Richard, (Pierce Brosnan), who is a notorious lothario, that he has fallen in love and he’s going to leave Pat because he wants to be truly happy. When Kay, (Rachel McAdams), arrives Richard understands why. Richard is smitten, so when he finds out that Pat may be in love with someone else but won’t tell Harry because she fears he would be too hurt, Richard can’t decide if he should let all the cats out of the bag. He’d unite pairs of lovers, but he’d lose Kay. Harry, for some monumentally egocentric reason, decides that Pat would rather be dead than face life without him and so he decides to kill her.
With shades of Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock this rather quaint piece of cinema by co-writer/director Ira Sachs is both intriguing and ultimately really moving.
The complicated betrayals are delicately handled in a surprisingly non-Moralistic way. Chris Cooper, an actor for whom the word dour might have been invented, is a really interesting piece of casting, and a brilliant one.
You have to believe the significance of Kay in Harry’s life and his opting for homicide as a merciful act. Cooper achieves both beautifully.
Pierce Brosnan is perhaps the odd one in this mix but he’s actually perfect as Richard, who narrates the film with a wry knowingness. And the two women, Clarkson and McAdams, are just splendid.
Sources: imdb.com, abc.net.au, atthemovies
Compiled by Jack Morton