Stars:
***
Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality and mature
themes
Run
Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
A stellar
cast puts vintage spin on the ubiquitous underbelly of love and marriage.
On the
surface 1949 is an era of post-war liberation and enduringly wedded bliss. Pat
and Harry Allen (Patricia Clarkson and Chris Cooper) appear to be the picture-perfect
couple, the envy of all their peers.
But there are skeletons lurking in their
closets, as Harry admits to best friend Richard Langley ( Pierce Brosnan) when
he confesses that he’s found love with another woman (Rachel McAdams as the
coolly breathtaking Kay Nesbitt).
One look at
Kay is all it takes for the rapacious Richard to fall down the rabbit hole
himself; voila! a messy little love triangle pitting husband and wife, friend
and lover, cat and mouse.
Harry is
desperate to untangle himself from his stifling union but can’t bear to see his
wife suffer. Which she won’t, he reasons, if he puts her out of her misery once
and for all.
Very
Hitchcockian -- classic elements of the master of suspense in every twist of
the beating heart. Plenty of treacherous scandal to mine but director Ira Sachs
plays it wistful not wayward, sticking to essential melodrama and tidy infidelities
while dropping narrative cherry bombs for calculated effect.
Set-ups are
appropriately stagey, scripting is breathy with hesitation and conundrums are
deftly observed. Period attitudes and appointments are deliciously spot on but
the critical chemistry, most notably between Cooper and McAdams, never fully
ignites.
What goes
on behind closed doors? Only the shadows know.