Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Harry decides he must kill his wife Pat because he loves her too much to let her suffer when he leaves her. Harry and his much younger girlfriend Kay are head over heels in love but his best friend Richard wants to win Kay for himself. As Harry implements his awkward plan for murdering his wife, the other characters are occupied with their own deceptions. Like Harry, they are overwhelmed by their passions, but still struggle to avoid hurting others. Married Life is an uncommonly adult film that surprises and confounds expectations. While it plays with mystery and intrigue, its ultimate concern is: What is Married Life? In its sly way, Married Life poses perceptive questions about the seasonal discontents and unforeseen joys of of all long-term relationships.

This is a film that poses interesting questions about married life. Ultimately it wasn’t as enlightening as I hoped for and honestly most of this material has been covered extensively in film already. Thankfully the great cast makes up for it though and the film does move along at a nice, but somewhat predictable pace. If anything this is a moral tale that says once again that if people just sucked it up and told the truth about how they feel to one another things would probably work out better in the end.

Sony delivers a good looking HD transfer here that has a very natural film look to it. Fine film grain is evident throughout and almost seems to be enhanced a bit to add to the aged look of the film. Fine object detail and close ups look really good but I did find the transfer a bit edgy at times. Colors have a throw back look to them with slightly oversaturated tones and dated hues. Contrast levels weren’t quite as strong as normal and blacks looked a bit clipped at times hurting shadow detail.

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is a nice collection of score and ambiance. The mix is a bit front heavy but the score does a nice job of setting the mood and filling in the gaps. Dialogue is the focus of the mix and it’s delivered with nice timbre and balance. While not a dynamic mix it is effective for the genre and what I would expect from the film.

Extras include a feature commentary with the director, three alternate endings and BD-Live connectivity with access to trailers and other online content.

While not quite the drama I was hoping for this was still a fun film. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre but the performances were strong. Sony has done a good job with the A/V presentation but it isn’t one of their top tier. A solid rental.