Married Life: Critic Reviews

Married Life is much more about the enduring relationship between husband and wife than it is about the excitement between husband and girlfriend.

Married Life, a period comedy of manners merged with a suspenseful psychological thriller, aspires to be a hybrid of the sort that Alfred Hitchcock polished to perfection.

A well-acted but lugubrious noir, which is somehow not quite thrilling enough to be a thriller, and not quite profound enough to be a character study.

Married Life is an engaging romance noir, a sort of updated The Postman Always Rings Twice that packs its surprises into four characters, none of them predictable.

Sirk or Billy Wilder could have done something with it. Sachs still has a ways to go.

This subtle dance around morality is as seductive as the elegantly designed rooms it takes place in, where even the shadows are cozy.

Offers audiences movie pleasures, as well as emotionally authentic challenges.

The movie is a goof on Hitchcock and Sirk -- a period (late forties) soap opera with nasty sexual undertones and the omnipresent threat of murder.

You may not like it if you insist on counting the deck after the game and coming up with 52. But if you get 51 and are amused by how the missing card was made to vanish, this may be a movie to your liking.

Married Life is structured like a Douglas Sirk melodrama or a Hitchcock thriller rather than a mystery, but it's a mystery nonetheless, because it's rarely clear what Sachs intends the movie to be.

A macabre comedy of manners with the sting of dry ice, this 2007 ensemble piece captures the social climate of America in the late 40s.

This quiet, closed-in picture with its unsurprising twists and turns, lacks the steamy passion of its pulp roots.

The story is original, the characters complex.

Stylish without being overly stylized, intelligent without being boring, Married Life is a classy throwback to the good old days when subtlety meant something at the movies and watching Hitchcock was a good reason to stay home.

Pic is dramatic but lacks a dynamic; one can sense the director's intent and affection for the form, but also see that working in this stylized vein does not necessarily come easily for a filmmaker of his hitherto more naturalistic tendencies.

Just when things should be boiling over, the script goes lukewarm.

It's as dry as the martinis these well-dressed stiffs keep ordering at that perfectly preserved oak, leather and velvet bar before hopping into their vintage convertibles.

It's strange how a movie with this many different things happening could be so dull.

Sachs combines humor, suspense, and twists of plot that keep the ground shifting under our feet.

A curious, provocative if unsatisfying little movie.

A playful riff on film noir that starts by upending every '40s movie cliche.

Married Life has enough plot twists and moments of high tension to keep the viewer engaged, but the main points of interest are the characters.

Teeters between film genres, not ever quite making up its mind what it strives for.

It's only about as interesting as...married life.

Maybe it is about compromise, after all, because though Married Life has its moments, it's bewildering as a whole.