Watching unhappily married couples is a bit like watching toddlers wrap Christmas presents with newspaper. After years of Scotch-taping the ever-widening gaps between star-crossed love and cold familiarity, many married couples find themselves desperately searching for some way to ditch without making the other person suffer '¦ like poisoning them. That's the painless solution Harry (Chris Cooper) devises in director Ira Sachs' new film, Married Life."" While the film does add some tangy humor and irony to the infidelity genre, it would have worked better if its characters weren't so much like their marriages - mismatched and lifeless.
As far as plot innovations go, ""Married Life"" offers little new, sticking mostly to the usual cynical motifs: unsatisfied couples, backstabbing friends and titillating games of Musical Affairs. The wild card is Harry, a businessman who ditches his wife for the much younger Kay (Rachel McAdams), not out of lust, but because she gives him the emotional intimacy his over-sexed wife (Patricia Clarkson) cannot.
This gender role reversal seems refreshingly contemporary, except that the film takes place just after the Second World War - a questionable and seemingly whimsical directorial decision that adds nothing to the story besides second-rate '40s costumes and people calling their loved ones ""dearest"" a lot.
To contrast its three rather charm-less characters, the film mixes in Pierce Brosnan as Richard, a slick British playboy whose close, though far-fetched, friendship with the clammed-up, no-nonsense Harry crumbles when Richard channels his libidinous faculties toward Kay as well. It's hard to blame him, though, since Harry inexplicably invites Richard to ""stop by sometime"" and pay Kay a visit, since she's awfully lonely in that remote cabin of hers reading books and becoming more and more fair-skinned (so much for contemporary gender roles).
Brosnan also narrates the film for some reason, chiming in with a regurgitated voice over at random times just to make sure we fully grasp the significance of every nonverbal scene.
The film's restless marriages, insatiable characters and black humor draw quick parallels to Woody Allen morality tales like ""Crimes and Misdemeanors"" and Hitchcock films like ""Dial M for Murder."" Unfortunately, ""Married Life"" lacks the in-depth character psychology, pace and witty script of both.
Aside from Chris Cooper's strong, layered performance as the vulnerable yet desperate Harry, every character in the film is miscast. Clarkson must have picked up McAdams' script by accident, because she gives Pat a devoted, warm and sensitive appeal that - as a carnal vortex bent on sexual domination - seems inappropriate. McAdams, meanwhile, dishes out her compassionate affection like a Stepford wife, and her chemistry with Cooper - a generation different in age - sets off few fireworks. Worst of all is Brosnan, who, although refined and well-groomed as ever, seems lost on stage without his double entendres.
All this could be forgiven if the plot were more entertaining. Unfortunately, by the time the conflict finally escalates in the last 10 minutes, after 80 minutes of stagnant, pseudo-psychological lollygagging, the final twists are no longer surprising.
Throughout the film, Brosnan's character asks his prurient counterparts if they think happiness can ever be built on the unhappiness of others. The film's ending cleverly leaves this answer ambiguous, but by then, the film's honeymoon is over and there's nothing left to salvage.
