Getting hitched
Anna Phelan
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Brosnan and McAdams: The usurper gets the mistress
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Married Life is a modern murder mystery in the Hitchcockian tradition
This film is a period piece that marries the sly sexual underhandedness of a Hitchcock plot with the lush nostalgia for Douglas Sirk's period films, evidenced recently in Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven. But whereas Haynes' work (building on Sirk's social problem films) is political, Married Life is (thankfully) apolitical, focusing instead on the cat-and-mouse dynamic mastered by Hitch.The plot centres on Harry (Chris Cooper) and Pat (Patricia Clarkson), a long-time married couple, and long-time adulterers. Harry chauvinistically believes that were he to leave Pat, she would never recover from the shock and disappointment of being shown up by the platinum beauty, Kay (Rachel McAdams). He decides the most humane way to relieve her of the embarrassment is to relieve her of her life, and that's when he hatches his murder plot. Ironically, it's Pat's similar assumption about her husband's fragile emotional state that prevents her from running off with her strapping young beau, proving, of course that she has the upper hand after all. Yay, women's lib!
Glibness aside, this is a delicately crafted and paced film, with bravo performances from all its leads, most notably Pierce Brosnan, as Rich, Harry's smug best friend, who sweeps the latter's mistress right out from under his nose. The set decoration and costumes are glorious, and Dickon Hinchliffe's score compellingly
orchestrates the action without being overbearing - a rarity in films either made or set around 1950.This is not the taut thriller that Hitchcock would have made, but that's the point. What makes it contemporary (and enjoyable) is the laidback, rather more hands-off feel that director Ira Sachs gives the film, allowing the dialogue and action to take on a looser, more emotionally poignant life, instead of resorting to the too-clever neatness of the genre master.
Married Life
