Philadelphia: At the Movies: Married Life

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At the Movies: Married Life
March 20, 2008
By: Gary Kramer
gkramer@aroundphilly.com

PICK OF THE WEEK: Married Life
Married Life is a meticulously crafted and handsomely mounted period drama about Harry (Chris Cooper) plotting to kill his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson) because he feels it’s kinder than divorcing her. Harry wants to be with his mistress Kay (Rachel McAdams), and tells this to his oily friend Richard (Pierce Brosnan), who narrates the film. However, Richard, too, comes to have designs on Kay himself. If the tone of Married Life veers wildly from character study to comedy to mild thriller, don’t take this simple film at face value. Looking beneath the surfaces of these four lovers, with their hidden and not-so-hidden agendas, provides valuable insights into the human condition in 1949 America. Motivated by greed, lust, and other sins, these lovers act wholly (in)appropriately, and each, arguably, gets what they deserve. Director and co-writer Ira Sachs has crafted a marvelous chamber piece that benefits from its absolute lack of irony, and the performances by the entire cast are fantastic.

ALSO OPENING:

Drillbit Taylor

Owen Wilson, slumming perhaps, aids three high-schoolers who are tired of being bullied.

Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant adapts Blake Nelson’s teen novel about Alex (Gabe Nevins) a skateboarder struggling with the consequences of the crime he committed. With gorgeous scenes of skaters in action, and some pretentious moments of teen angst, Paranoid Park certainly captures disaffected youth. But the success of this accomplishment is undermined by a weak lead performance by Nevins, a disjointed narrative structure, and an absence of any real feeling.

Shutter

A thriller in which newlyweds see ghosts in photographs while on their honeymoon in Japan.

Sleepwalking

A pre-teen girl (AnnaSophia Robb) seeks out the mother who abandoned her (Charlize Theron) with the help of her uncle (Nick Stahl).

Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns

Angela Bassett stars as a woman who attends the funeral of her father—whom she never met—and befriends his fun-loving family.