Scenes from a Marriage

"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!!!

I could not take my eyes off of the first two episodes... I divorced and had a hard breakup, I just recognised so many of memories... it was intense, painful sometimes.

I guess many of us can see her/himself in these situations, happened to us before and will, undoubtedly.

We are not alone in this.

If you are young, never been in a serious relationship or married before, you shouldn't watch it.

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.