After decades together, Harry (Chris Cooper) has come to the conclusion that if he ever wants to live happily with his beautiful mistress Kay (Rachel McAdams) then the only humane thing to do is kill his quietly lovely wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson). After all, she would be depressed and lonely without him and the seemingly mild-mannered businessman just couldn’t have that on his conscience. No, better to just kill her and be done with it, homicide much better for the woman then having to deal with shattering shards of a broken heart.

Chris Cooper and Rachel McAdams in Sony Pictures Classics' Married Life

On one had a Douglas Sirk style melodrama, on the other a stylishly designed period thriller, the new film Married Life attempts to do a lot of things in order to draw viewers into its hopefully intoxicating smoke-filled spell. Sets, costumes, music, makeup, few films are as intricately or ornately put together as this one is, this late 1940’s story of infidelity, friendship and potential murder as beautiful to look at as anything else made so far this year.

Unfortunately, all this taste and refinement can’t quite bring me to embrace director and co-writer Ira Sachs’ (Forty Shades of Blue) latest motion picture. The film is cold and somewhat distancing. More, I never quite got what the point of it all was. Sure individual scenes alternate between coyly comedic dryness and frigidly unnerving tension helping build to some tearfully moving drama, but compiled together they end up adding to far less than the sum of their respective parts.

If anything, watching this one fail to come together only made me appreciate Todd Haynes’ 2002 Oscar-nominated Far From Heaven that much more. Imitating that Written on the Wind or Imitation of Life 1950’s style of filmmaking while still retaining a modern relevancy can’t be easy, and where that stunning feature pulled it off magnificently watching this one come up just short proves the point perfectly. I wanted it to work, almost yearned for it to sweep me up into its delicately devilish platinum blonde and crisp black tie panache, but it just never did it, and all that was left for me to do at the end was wonder bewilderedly why not.

All that said, there is plenty about the film that works to make it worth at least a cursory glance or two. The acting is universally stellar, especially on the part of the ladies. Both of them are extraordinary, each adding subtle nuances and intricate layers to their portraits making them wholly believable and distinctly one of a kind. Cooper is also good (even if we’ve seen this performance from the Oscar winner before), while Pierce Brosnan is at is usual smoothly seductive best as Harry’s womanizing best friend Richard.

I was also struck more than a little flabbergasted from just how magnificent much of this is strictly from a technical standpoint. Dickon Hinchliffe’s (Nenette et Boni) score adds just the right bit of subtle shading to each and every scene, while Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski’s (Martian Child) becomes a fantastically dexterous character inside the film all its own. It is Peter Deming’s (Lucky You) cinematography that really impresses, however, each frame a transcendent visual sonnet my eyes continually delighted over. 

I just wish I could say the same for the movie as a whole. While I respect what Sachs is attempting to do, and while fleeting moments here and there kept me thoroughly enraptured, by the time it was over I found myself frustratingly disappointed almost beyond words. I almost hate to say it but as good as the courtship is, if this is Married Life then sign me up for a divorce.

Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Married Life Theatrical Trailer