Failing to orient itself in any way, it becomes a vacuum, a rote recitation of the mechanics of the murder plot.

| Oct 12, 2018

The United States' well-off middle class of the 1950s, its taboos, stereotypes and lifestyles, are reflected in this interesting and harsh film. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 22, 2018

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

The roundelay structure and Hitchcockian nods could have easily given way to a sardonic puppet theater, but Sachs and screenwriter Oren Moverman care too much about their characters to turn them into pawns

| Aug 27, 2009

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Oct 18, 2008

One of the more ethically dubious films to come out of Hollywood in years.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 18, 2008

This darkly comic dramatic thriller, which is set just after World War II, is more than merely watchable. It's very smart and is old-fashioned in several respects.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

| Original Score: C+ | Oct 18, 2008

It is as though filmmaker Ira Sachs fears that just making a film about infidelity is too straight, too pedestrian, so, he's got to introduce the possibility that murder is on the horizon.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 18, 2008

Even movies that dare to paint dark portraits of the sacred institution can't resist glorifying it in the end.

| Sep 10, 2008

The ensemble cast chemistry is superb in its nearly suffocating tangle of repressed passions, but the family-values wrap-up of all these messy erotic tensions feels ultimately far too pat and unresolved.

| Sep 4, 2008

Once he gets out from under his influences and trusts his own gut, Sachs might become a major director.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Thought-provoking themes swirl around in this drama, brought to life by a skilled cast and a director who plays with Hitchcockian themes and imagery. In the end, it feels a bit undercooked, but the actors keep us glued to the screen.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 1, 2008

It's a good cast, with Cooper outstanding, but Sachs's direction is stodgy and the screenplay is grindingly self-conscious.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 1, 2008

The acting is as classy and well-realised as the lush 1940s period detail, yet this entertainingly entangled, ersatz noir is frustrating because it never fully gels.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2008

The tangled web which slowly causes the film's relationships to disintegrate is brilliantly woven. However, you can't help wishing the climax packs a bit more of a dramatic punch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2008

A noirish 1940s-set character study, it's an initially intriguing tale of infidelity and betrayal that smoulders, but never quite catches fire.

| Aug 1, 2008

A classy cast and production design to die for are the only features of note in an underpowered tale of adultery and intrigue in '50s America.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 1, 2008

Married Life may fall short of the best Hollywood melodrama, but its nicely observed situations and old-fashioned storytelling ironically lend this a freshness more on-the-nose infidelity tales are missing.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 1, 2008

The movie is determinedly low-key, but honest, with a wrenching break-up scene, sharp work from Clarkson, and a final thought that lingers, about never really knowing what your other half is thinking.

| Aug 1, 2008