MovieChat Forums > Scenes from a Marriage (2021) Discussion > RECAP REVIEWS of S1 EP 1

RECAP REVIEWS of S1 EP 1

posted 3 years ago by joi2049 (5562)
8 replies | jump to latest

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/michael-phillips/sc-ent-hbo-scenes-marriage-review-0914-20210914-cqfg4uwlxvahbjzftlimz2vxza-story.html

The first episode begins the way Bergman began his “Scenes”: with an interview. A graduate student working on her thesis on “evolving gender norms” and how they affect monogamous marriages asks the couple a series of increasingly probing questions while their daughter, Ava (Lily Jane), watches “Wallace and Gromit” in the next room. Mira and Jonathan say they’ve been together 10 years. We learn that Jonathan identifies himself as a man first, a Jew second (raised in a strict Orthodox household; he has since lapsed) and an academic. He doesn’t mention “husband,” though later he says he did. That detail of omission and revision is one of the shrewdest things in the episode.

The events of “Scenes from a Marriage” covers a slew of potential marriage-destroyers. An unexpected pregnancy; an abruptly revealed affair; a painfully undefined separation; and then, what happens afterward, which is no less clearly defined

The key flaw in the series, I think, comes in just how clearly Jonathan emerges as the more empathetic and searching of the two leads. Bergman’s version was far tougher on the blowhard securities of the male character. This time, with Jonathan as the primary caregiver, the series at its most reductive settles for “Kramer vs. Kramer” heroes and villains. Mira describes herself at various points as manipulative

There’s no question that Bergman’s version is the superior, tougher and ultimately fairer-minded achievement.

What's CURIOUS is the way the MALE character strikes me as being the MANIPULATIVE one during that INTERVIEW -- where the WIFE can barely manage to say anything -- due to the CONSTANT INTERUPTIONS of the husband -- who DOMINATES and CONTROLS the conversation and what's being said to the woman who is doing the interview.

Does anyone else agree or disagree???

Did you also notice the same thing about how MANIPULATIVE the husband was being during that interview???

It's hard to see this character as being some kind of a "KRAMER HERO" when one already doesn't like him very much after the way he behaved during that interview.

[–] joi2049 (5562) 3 years ago

Another REVIEW:

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1035940469/scenes-from-a-marriage-hbo-oscar-isaac-jessica-chastain-review

it's tempting to see this as an extension of HBO's run of shows about horrible affluent people being ... horrible and affluent. To some degree, it is that. But the tone is much more intimate and less satirical than in something like The White Lotus or Succession, and the focus is so much on this one marriage that it doesn't have those shows' sprawl.

At the time the original Scenes From A Marriage was made, there was far less of an established genre of painful-divorce theater than we have now. This was pre-Kramer vs. Kramer and pre-War Of The Roses, just to name two American stories with wildly different undertones. To see a marriage turn ugly, to see people light into each other over every awful thing that's ever happened, that's not a novelty, and 2021 is not the year that 1973 was when it comes to divorce in the U.S. or Europe. Even reality television has blunted some of the sharp edges

don't expect to leave this show with much of a takeaway about marriage or relationships. As much as anything, it's a study of how mundane the curdling of love can really be.

That's the kind of STUDY that one would like to see done, is whether or not MARRIAGE is even still a feasible enough relationship to have or not in this current day and age (where HALF of them END in DIVORCE -- or at the 8.5 YEAR TIME FRAME -- as the person who does the interview claims).

[–] joi2049 (5562) 3 years ago

Still Another REVIEW:

https://www.cnet.com/news/scenes-from-a-marriage-review-jessica-chastain-oscar-isaac-elevate-raw-intimate-remake/

"I'm going to go out of my mind if I don't leave right now." A wife drops that nuclear bomb with breathless urgency in HBO's Scenes From a Marriage. She's a tech executive who's returned early from a business trip to tell her philosophy professor husband she's leaving him. "There's nothing left to say," she informs her shell-shocked spouse as he follows her upstairs begging for an explanation.

viewers who hang on through the tender finale are likely to find some reward in the excruciatingly honest, relatable exploration of the joys and challenges of long-term coupledom --

Mira's strained facial expressions and tense body language reveal a simmering dissatisfaction

-- and her constant, furtive phone-checking suggests she's texting someone she doesn't want hubby to know about. The busy, cerebral Jonathan missed the signs of her misery, Mira tells him later, but viewers won't.

She, distrustful of love, watched her mother marry and divorce several times. He, emotionally guarded, often felt anxious and inadequate under the unyielding gaze of his dominant, judgmental father. As a young adult, he left behind the Orthodox Judaism of his childhood, and Mira blames his "religious hang-ups" for her lack of sexual fulfillment. He, not surprisingly, has a different view of their less-than-sizzling sex life. "It turns out all I needed was a woman who actually wanted me as I am," he says during one of their many gut punching back-and-forths.

Love and hate dance a delicate pas de deux.

there are ultimately no clear-cut villains here, just flawed, complicated humans trying to understand themselves and each other. The two make mistakes, and try to fix them. They judge each other's faults, then recognize similar faults in themselves.

"There's no place in the world that would make me feel secure," Mira tells Jonathan in one of the first indications she may finally be cultivating a shred of self-awareness. The thrill of new lovers, promotions and fancy new high-rise apartments won't cure Mira's discontent. Happiness, we're reminded, has to be an inside job.

[–] joi2049 (5562) 3 years ago

And another:

https://www.vulture.com/article/scenes-from-a-marriage-season-1-episode-1-recap.html

Jon and Mira can’t get on the same page about the pregnancy or even how to talk about the pregnancy. They try to tease each other’s feelings so they can peg their responses to what the other wants to hear. It’s not honest, no, but it’s motivated by caring. They don’t want to hurt each other or hurt each other’s ideas of each other. This is how a marriage maintains its balance, it seems, with small movements and half-truths. Jon can’t accept that Mira “doesn’t know” how she feels and even suggests that, subconsciously, she missed her birth-control pills to realize her old dream of two kids. He wants to have the baby, he finally spits out.

It’s remarkable that 50 years after the original series aired, this still scene feels so fresh: a married couple with means discussing abortion within the marriage.

(It’s interesting to note that in the 1974 U.S. theatrical release of Bergman’s original, the pregnancy and the abortion plot are removed entirely; this is the world that Roe v. Wade was decided into.)

But the first two years after Ava’s birth were hard for them; there’s a suggestion, I’m pretty sure, that Mira suffered from postnatal depression or possibly worse. They can’t even talk about the facts of their lives with frankness. “It’s painful wanting something and not wanting it at the same time,” she tells Jon forebodingly. Still, by lights out, they’ve talked themselves round to a modest home renovation to make space for their new addition. Of course, happily married couples have more babies.

But something changes in the intervening week, and the next time we see Mira and Jon, they’re at the doctor for an abortion.

after she takes the pill that will end the pregnancy, she asks to be alone. She sobs because she had an abortion or because she wanted to have an abortion, or because she’s living this lovely life and can’t figure out how to like it.

Jon and Mira are far apart and growing farther, but how do you show that between two people who refuse to be unkind to each other, who refuse to ignore each other’s questions? I don’t know, and yet, in the premiere of Scenes From a Marriage, I watched it happen.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

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[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

OMG! Are you back again, bitch? And why am I not surprised it's for yet another HBO production like "Allen Vs. Farrow" and "White Lotus"! So many of us will never forget the garbage posts you made on those boards with your ANNOYING tendency to BREAK out in ALL-CAPS for no REASON. Looks like you brought Who with you--another person I believe is on the HBO payroll to hype up their latest project. You are standing on holy ground when talking about a project using Ingmar Bergman as its source material. Oh--I would like to give a spoiler for you right now even though not all the episodes of Scenes have dropped yet--not one person will die of an unexpected shark attack like you believed would happen on "White Lotus". I am hear to mock your bullshit. Stand your ground, woman.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

Awaiting your response, joi2049. It is highly encouraged. I look forward to destroying you.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

[deleted]