MovieChat Forums > Scenes from a Marriage (2021) Discussion > Is it me or does anyone else watching th...

Is it me or does anyone else watching this find it hard to believe?

posted 3 years ago by brux (14730)
3 replies | jump to latest

There are only 3 episodes out so far, and spoilers ... there is a divorce coming up! Maybe? ;-)

So far this is just a woman married to her high-powered and high-paying job with a kind of "poodle" husband who is an academic and a nice enough guy, who comes home and proclaims she is in love and has been having an affair and going to leave her husband that very night to fly out of the country for 3-4 months, leaving him with their daughter.

How can a women who is so emotional and needy go months or years as she said unhappy and never mentioning it or talking about it? How can the husband who is blindsided by this and having his whole life turned upside down not respond and lose his temper?

So, my feeling is that there is something in this movie that is being transmitted to the audience that not realistic. Maybe the writer is taking the side of the husband and trying to show how unreasonable and capricious woman can be? I don't know, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. This is a story beyond anything in life I can relate to in that it is almost all mental, taking place in the minds of the characters with emotion subdued.

I'm curious what others think of this series. Do you think the characters are rational, irrational, believable, unbelievable?

[–] joi2049 (5562) 3 years ago

my feeling is that there is something in this movie that is being transmitted to the audience that not realistic.

Here's a REVIEW that agrees with you, and COMPARES this NEW HBO VERSION with the OLDER VERSION that was ORIGINALLY made by BERGMAN:

https://news.yahoo.com/hbos-scenes-marriage-doesnt-bergmans-130016485.html

The PROBLEM is the way the MALE was the DOMINANT one in the ORIGINAL STORY and was the one who LEAVES the WIFE for another woman.

So they've tried to change that in this NEW VERSION of the story, and have the FEMALE as the DOMINANT personality. But she's not been presented that way to us (due to the way her husband DOMINATED the conversation she had at the start of the show with the person who INTERVIEWS them).

So whereas he's the CARETAKER who takes care of their daughter, he's also just as DOMINANT PERSONALITY WISE as the original BERGMAN character, which is also what can be confusing.

Because we never see any indication that the WIFE has the DOMINANT type of personality that it would take to RUN a company (due to the way she's taken care of by the husband each time she's on screen with him).

So that's also a part of the problem, is how we don't see any proof or evidence that she's a CONFIDENT enough person to CONTROL other people (except for in Ep. 2 when she's the one making the DEMANDS and telling the husband what she'll do and not giving him a choice to do anything about it).

I think the KEY to understanding their relationship lies in that OPENING SCENE where they do that INTERVIEW. Because they also explain how they became a COUPLE after a doctor at the hospital made the mistake of assuming they were a COUPLE. And after that they continued to keep PRETENDING that was the case until they got married (after which the PRETENSE also seems to have continued).

In other words, they've had a VERY STRANGE relationship right from the start, which may also explain the reason why we still find the relationship the same way after they've been married for 10 years.

And Maybe they'd also have been better off if the doctor had never made that remark, and if they'd remained roommates, and never have gotten married???

Because they certainly didn't have much in common with his coming from a STRICT RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING and with her dating an abusive ROCK STAR. So what was the attraction between them? Was there ever one at all, or did they marry each other for the wrong reasons and simply because they'd been mistaken for being a couple at a time when they were not???

If that interview is ever mentioned again, and we hear about the RESULTS of that STUDY, perhaps that may also shed some further light upon the situation???

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

Why did you have to do this, brux? Now joi2049 will never stop talking!

[–] bobbydallas (8556) 3 years ago

idk i've only seen the original '73 Bergman 6-episode series.

it was alright..