FAQ

Married Life is based on the 1953 novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven by English novelist John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris of Newbrook. The novel was adapted for the film by screenwriter Oren Moverman and director Ira Sachs.

Those viewers who have both seen the movie and read the novel say that the novel's ending has been radically changed for the movie. The movie ending is light-hearted and shows the fate of the couples one year in the future. The novel's ending is much darker with many twists and revisits the couples twenty years in the future. Most agree that the movie and the novel tell two different stories.

Harry Allen (Chris Cooper) is married to Pat (Patricia Clarkson) and having an affair with widow Kay Nesbitt (Rachel McAdams) while Pat is having an affair with John O'Brien (David Wenham), who has a girlfriend (Anna Williams) but is not married. Harry's best friend Richard Langley (Pierce Brosnan) is also unmarried, but on Harry's recommendation, he starts seeing Kay. To make things even more complicated, Harry doesn't know that Pat is sleeping with John, nor does he know that Richard and Kay are falling in love. Neither does Pat know that Harry is sleeping with Kay.

That's I Can't Give You Anything But Love as performed by Doris Day.