Those We Love

This is a hard film to evaluate. On the one hand, it makes a serious attempt to deal honestly with the damage that suspicion and unfaithful thoughts can do to a marriage and to family relationships, and the characters are mostly sympathetic. On the other hand, the story is loaded with coincidences and implausible developments, and it moves slowly as well.

The opening scene is rather nice, though coincidence-dependent: a young author accidentally meets a woman (Mary Astor) who has just bought the first copy of his new book. They soon are married, and live happily with their son. Some time later, problems arise when an opportunistic woman in the neighborhood tries to seduce the husband, and although he resists, the appearances create deep suspicions in his wife, setting up a chain of events that threaten the happiness of the entire family. All of the characters work pretty well in themselves, and the situation lends itself to some interesting possibilities. But the movie relies far too much on coincidences to set up the key events. There are also too many times when the film gets bogged down, dragging out several scenes unnecessarily.

Due to the nature of the story, it's not always a fun film to watch. It has its good points and its weaknesses, and whether it is worth seeing depends on whether the story sounds interesting to you or not.