TV review: Just one problem in Scenes From A Marriage — if I was either of them, I’d have left the other
Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in Scenes from a Marriage for Caroline Delaney
Ingmar Bergman.
That's the first thing that comes up when people describe (Sky Atlantic, Mondays and Now TV). It’s the name of the Swedish director who made the original series in 1973, and it’s basically a warning. The warning is that Ingmar Bergman was very cool back in the day and if you don’t like this new adaptation, you might be better off watching .
But is it any good? The current version, starring Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac as Mira and Jonathan , a largely faithful adaptation by all accounts, mirrors Bergman’s story of a slow, sad marriage breakdown, all wistful glances and red raw chats . The Swedes are good at relationship breakdown art, just listen to the pain in . The Yanks aren’t bad in the 2021 version, it’s believable and you get the sense that you’re in their lives. There is just one problem in the opening episode — if I was either of them, I’d have left the other.
She’s got a good job in tech, on the big money, while he’s an academic and stay-at-home Dad for their 4-year-old . They’re joyless and very intense. At least they are joyless and intense now, when we join them, in what feels like injury time for their marriage. And that’s why I’ll keep watching .
Because you get a sense they weren’t always like this. There are enough traces of affection and connection still there, even if he has a tendency to finish her sentences. You sense they must have felt like they had the world at their feet when they got together 12 years ago, white, rich, with a very nice house.
Most of us have been there and experienced love lost, so it’s easy to step in their shoes for a few hours and share the pain. In the end, we want to know if they’ll make it through.
They didn’t make it through in the original in the 1970s. Bergman’s series was considered revolutionary, because the woman left the man, and some reckon that this TV show helped to fuel the explosion in divorces both in Sweden and then the western world. I’ve only watched the first episode so far so I don’t know if this is repeated in the current version, but I’ve heard whispers that they changed this a bit, so here’s hoping for them.
Part of the empathy comes down to good acting . Chastain and Isaac went viral last month after he sniffed her under-arm (lovingly enough) at the premiere in Venice. It’s not something I want to see again. But I do want to see how their characters, Mira and Jonathan, got stuck in a moment where they seem to be talking past each other. I want to see if they can chill-out and rediscover what they liked about each other. is a very good emotional thriller and I’m in for the long run. And if I get sick of the complexity and intensity, I can always throw on .
