Married Life

Married Life (Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams) — Honestly, the great thing about art-house films is that you can travel back to bygone eras of movies and watch modern actors try their hand at real acting without special effects and high-speed chases.  Like Flawless, this is a period piece set in the late ’40s.  It has a black-and-white feel with perfect casting of at least three of the four stars.  Rachel McAdams may be the exception, playing older than she is as the “other woman,” Kay, with a hard-to-buy attraction to a dour executive, Harry Allen, played by Chris Cooper.  He is married to Pat, played by the incredible Patricia Clarkson.  The marriage is routine and mostly loveless even though the two of them care deeply for each other and truly believe that each other’s worlds revolve around them.  Cooper’s Allen finds his sensual release in the young Kay, and confides only to his longtime best friend, Robert Langley, played very low-key by Pierce Brosnan.   But friendship only goes so far, and Langley falls for the young girl, lies to his friend, and creates the tension of the film.  Just as Cooper plans his separation from his wife, he is faced with incredible ironies and unspeakable truths.  This is a somewhat tough movie to watch but you will enjoy the performances and the surprise ending.