Secretos de un matrimonio

"HBO's" latest limited original series "Scenes From a Marriage" which was based on a 1973 Swedish Ingmar Bergman TV miniseries is brought to light in a modern day play like form from writer and director Hagai Levi just fine as he captures the right moments and small details of a married couple to be believed perfect. As all of us can relate and know people like married couples who have lived an open marriage or had affairs, and for what ever reason after many years have just called it a wrap or divorced. And you ask what was the problem were or were not they made for one another and this series highlights those very themes.

The moments and scenes take place over years and many of the episode acts are done in the comfortable couple's home. The great brilliant series stars Oscar Isaac as Jonathan a college professor who's thoughtful and serious and plus he plays second fiddle to his high tech sales executive wife Mira(the super Jessica Chastain). Starting out the married couple talk out their lives and relationship in therapy, only things get complex with a new child on the way and an affair. The emotions and love go back and forth as the series scenes turn raw it's like watching tear jerking moments of a break away couple who are having problems letting go. As a viewer you feel honesty and tender times of sorrow.

I'm not married still this is enough entertaining drama for me to watch, still I guess many married couples can relate to moments like these. The episodes try to capture realism and rage at it's best and the acting chemistry is top notch with Jessica and Isaac making this a must watch as acting talents are on display tour de force! The entry and exit scenes are climatic and eye opening, overall this is one eye opening revealing adult series to be watched as it's a showcase of how to open up with pain and love.

This is an adaptation (by HBO and screening on Sky Atlantic in the UK) of a 1973 Ingmar Bergman classic. I had a feeling that creator (writer and director) Hagai Levi had gender swapped the story line (in the original it's the husband who has an affair) and placed some of the action in Israel (his name makes it obvious why and probably explains the casting of Oscar Isaac). The gender swap move is a neat one and immediately puts Chastain on the back foot with a big job of winning the viewer over. It's such a simple trick, but it's modern, interesting and immediately elevates it from the predictable.

To be honest there is nothing predictable about this at all. For a start the acting is so pitch perfect that you could easily be eavesdropping a real marriage breakdown and that makes it entirely uncomfortable from the get go.

And when I say the acting is pitch perfect I don't just mean 10/10, I mean better than that. Smarter than that. Realer than that. Were this a movie we would be looking at the two acting Oscars, no questions. It's like a lesson in acting.

So, that means it's boring then?

Nope.

Slow, I'll grant you that.

Intense. Indeed.

The cast list runs to 19 but this is really a two hander in which succesful businesswoman Mira (Jessica Chastain) and comparatively less succesful academic (and house husband) Jonathan split up over five intense hours.

There's virtually no music to lighten the mood, but when there is it's extremely well used.

It's not a lot of laughs. (It's Bergman). It really isn't. And it would play out extremely well on a theatre stage and yet, strangely, the direction is so superior that it doesn't for a second feel 'stagey' unlike, say, Fences.

I was captivated by this. It's so real and believable as Chastain and Isaac's marriage disintegrates, threatens to reboot, disintegrates again and generally gets into a right old mess.

This won't be everybody's cup of tea. But if you like a bit of misery and you adore great acting then tune in bro.

Both Jessica and Oscar are so eye opening so amazing making these 2 characters so alive so genuine so far this is a definitely amazing show GOOD JOB HBO!!!

Starts well but by the 3rd episode I'm feeling little for either character. Although well acted, the characters become absurd as they flit from one emotional outburst to intimacy minutes apart. It just seems too manufactured and ultimately exhausting.

Edit after Ep 5 (final): The series got better for me in episodes 4 and 5, and there are twists, with the two characters more dimensional. Episode 5 is a tour de force and I'm sad it's over. JC is more relatable, although perhaps her coldness in the early episodes was part of her conflict and unhappiness. There is a distinct and searing pain of being the one who leaves, but is rarely recognized in society or on film, but if it's here, it's just too subtle. I also haven't been re-watching the 1973 series along with this, which may have helped. I have to say that JC and Isaac do fantastic sex scenes. Not just erotic, but warmly emotional, very real, not p*rn. I'm not a big fan of requisite sex scenes (HBO is famous for them, esp those that don't further the plot) but these add to the drama, although they aren't necessary to it. I still stand by my previous review, below, esp re Liv Ullman, but glad this series improved as it went, rather than the other way around. I am raising my rating from a 7 (6.5) to an 8 (7.5), however.

Original review after Ep 3: I've been re-watching the original along with the new, and this is based on the first 3 HBO episodes. What can you say about Liv Ullman (an It Girl of her time)? She was spectacular in the original (and in so many other things; just complete mastery of her craft), as was her co-star. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain are competent here (perhaps Isaac more so) as JC lacks the subtlety and physical mastery of Ullman. JC relies on her time worn faces and pregnant pauses while Ullman relies on...acting (with no botox).

Perhaps a comparison to the 1973 Swedish series is a bit unfair, but inevitable. It's an iconic series, by an iconic director and star, with the same plot (if gender switched and modernized), so a comparison IS fair. Poor JC, though, to be compared to one of the best actors of all time! JC Mira is even more cold than usual here and not a likeable character in any way. It's too bad Isaac is the amazing good guy and she is the villain. The original was more even, more believable, as they both were to blame for their marital problems. Ullman's Mira comes off a bit better, as the 'victim', but Isaac is downright holy in the new version. Uncomfortable to say the least.

It's also hard to really understand this without the context of 1973. Women's Lib was going full steam, wives were still often trapped in the roles of the 1950s. It was the Me Decade and people were suddenly expecting more. More romance, more sex, more happiness for me, me, me. And that is all lost here, even with the surface modernizing.

I was married when this came out, and we suffered from the same illness, and I have again, yet I couldn't really grab onto the remake or relate to it. Perhaps because JC's character and lines are so extreme and inexplicable. Not very real compared to what I went through (I played the JC role). But the original was very easy to get my head around and relate to. The current writers didn't keep the part of the script they should have and went off the rails a bit with her part. I've rarely been so unable to relate to a character.

I would have given this a 6.5, if possible, and that may be generous, but you don't see this kind of TV anymore. I wish there would be more shows with deep character development with time to explore motifs. And you must engage your brain. It's brave, it's slow, and if you are a teen or young adult, you won't get it and be bored out of your mind. Unless you've been married a while, at least. And it's not much fun, but like a car wreck, you have to watch.

Edit re multiracial couples: As always, I am dismayed to see people complaining about this. What century is this? How clueless of people to complain about non-white characters ("modernizing", "woke") while, in many cases, not even realizing they are racist, who shrink in horror at the KKK and other groups, while speaking the very party lines of said organizations.