Why Scenes From A Marriage Is More Devastating Than Marriage Story

Why Scenes From A Marriage Is More Devastating Than Marriage Story

By comparison, HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage weaves a sadder story of the gut-wrenching realities of divorce than Netflix’s Marriage Story.

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Why Scenes From A Marriage Is More Devastating Than Marriage Story

Many reviews for Scenes From a Marriage have compared it to the 2019 movie Marriage Story and have consequently dubbed the series to be more devastating. Written, directed, and executive produced by HBO-alum Hagai Levi (In Treatment, Our Boys, The Affair), the new miniseries stars Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac as a married upper-middle class couple on the brink of divorce. Much like how Marriage Story explored the trials and tribulations of love, parenthood, and commitment, Scenes From a Marriage provides an unflinching look into what makes a relationship work–and what makes it crumble.

Levi is no stranger to the art of adaptation. In Treatment was, in fact, based on (and often translated verbatim from) his Israeli series BeTipul. This time around, Scenes From a Marriage is his HBO reboot of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 miniseries of the same name. Overall, the series aligns with the original premise and structure, but has been updated with modern sensibilities, including an examination of the ways in which gender and financial power play roles in present-day marriages.

What makes Scenes From a Marriage more devastating than Marriage Story is how it dangles hope in the face of a relationship’s demise. Indeed, the HBO miniseries is an intimate and, at times, emotionally wrought portrayal of a relationship that oscillates between love and hate, comfort and violence, domestic peace and familial war. It lures the audience into wanting to believe that the differences between Chastain’s Mira and Isaac’s Jonathan are anything but irreconcilable. Meanwhile, Netflix’s best 2019 movie positions the legal procedure of divorce as the inciting enemy of Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie’s (Adam Driver) marriage. Yes, each contributed their own faults and failings in their marriage, but it was arguably once the lawyers got involved that brought the conflict between them to a heated apex.

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In the premiere episode of Scenes From a Marriage, Mira says to Jonathan: “It’s painful wanting something but not wanting it at the same time.” Here, she is referring to the couple’s unplanned pregnancy, but the sentiment serves as the foundation for the miniseries’ underlying emotional conflict. It brings to mind the opening scene in which the couple, being interviewed on their perspectives on marriage, immediately seem to be on different emotional pages. What’s not said in their interview speaks louder than the answers given, hinting at unresolved conflict that’s waiting to erupt. That the cast of Scenes From a Marriage is small and the narrative is dialogue-driven only further magnify Mira and Jonathan’s relationship. The focus is on wholly on the married couple, urging audiences to read into the stutters, glances, and pauses taken and to see everything that’s brewing underneath.

Marriage Story, on the other hand, makes it clear that Nicole and Charlie loved each other before, during, and after marriage. In fact, the movie bookends the gut-wrenching reality of divorce with outright declarations of love. The opening voiceover sequences in which both Nicole and Charlie talk about what they love about each other immediately invite the audience to see how great of a team they made, whether it’s wife/husband, mother/father, or actor/director. Unlike with Mira and Jonathan, there’s no denying that Nicole and Charlie were, at one point, a perfect match for each other. Even the ending of Marriage Story, during which Nicole ties Charlie’s shoelace, suggests that a degree of trust and intimacy still exist between them despite the disputes that arose during the divorce proceedings. It’s arguably the most amicable “happily-ever-after” a divorced couple could hope for. Indeed, it’s an ending that Scenes From a Marriage makes the audience want for Mira and Jonathan, but ultimately refuses to fulfill.

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Link Source : https://screenrant.com/scenes-marriage-comparison-marriage-story-movie-sad-why/

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