Scenes From A Marriage review: Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac's striking chemistry wedded to cinematic realism

Scenes From A Marriage, Hagai Levi’s reinterpretation of Ingmar Bergman’s classic Swedish miniseries from 1973, has an unlikely opening. Four of the five-episode series begin with the bustle of backstage, where we see the makings of creating a scene in times of COVID-19. As a busy crew, fully clad in masks, rush around a set, we hear an AD asking ‘Jess’ (Jessica Chastain) what time she would like to take her lunch. Soon after, we see the actress walk through the set of the house that we would be seeing for the rest of the series, settle on a spot before the slate board claps, and we hear the director yell “action." And with that, we forget pretty much everything we saw in the last two minutes, and get completely immersed in the scene. It is a device Levi uses repeatedly, in the opening sequences only, with the exception of the last episode. To what purpose, I am yet to ascertain. Although if you are always curious about the ‘backstage’ part of things, as I am, you will not complain. I do suspect, however, that satisfying the audience’s curiosity in this regard did not rank high in Levi’s list of purposes. But giving us this slight glimpse of what is basically people getting ready for work, appears to be an effort to undercut the hyper-real and often devastating ‘scenes’ that are about to unfold. In this adaptation of Bergman’s work, Chastain and Oscar Isaac play Mira and Jonathan, a couple that has been married for 10 years, when we first meet them. This is the beginning of a very slow and agonizing dissolution of their marriage as we soon realise, even as they make great efforts to truthfully answer the questions of a PhD student writing a paper on how evolving gender norms are impacting monogamous marriages. We see a struggling, conflicted Mira trying to process the probing questions before answering them, while Jonathan mansplains his way through, appearing to over-intellectualise their marriage without really going into the emotional vacuity they have both been feeling for a while. As his character unravels over the next episodes, we realise that Jonathan, who grew up Jewish orthodox, has emotional needs that he does not know of, and has never wanted to fully address them either. And Mira, while wanting to prove to her three-times married mother that she does indeed have the “marriage gene,” has gone about her own marriage struggling through many silent screams until finally, it all implodes for her. [caption id=“attachment_10048391” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac in a still from Scenes From A Marriage[/caption] Levi has reversed gender roles in his adaptation. Unlike in the original where Erland Josephson’s Johan is the harsh and unkind provider of the household, here, it is Mira, a top tech executive, who plays breadwinner and also the partner that initiates the separation when she abruptly reveals her affair to her husband. By putting the woman in these shoes, Levi makes this character more complex than extreme. Jonathan, a professor of Philosophy, who works from home has taken on the mantle of the caregiver, and the primary guardian to their five-year-old daughter. To see a marriage turn ugly was a novelty in the ’70s, when Bergman created the original. Since then, there have been multiple spin-offs of the same, as well as countless other stories about broken couples. So for Levi, in remaking the original, a key challenge would have been to make it contemporary wherein ‘divorce’ is not the main turning point and the story, with the lives and emotions it contains, can very well spiral into all directions even after a couple parts ways, legally. You do not have to have seen Bergman’s original to feel a sense of déjà vu while watching Levi’s work – chances are you have seen several versions of a similar premise. But just because it has been done before, that does not have to mean that it cannot be done well. And Chastain and Isaac do just that. The lead pair, who have known each other since college in real life, share an undeniable chemistry, a glimpse of which we saw in the viral slow-motion clip from their red carpet hotness at the Venice Film Festival. In the series though, they play a far more distant couple, but one that cannot stay away from each other for too long, even if they must be in the same room only to hurt each other.

They make Mira and Jonathan’s sparring, tensions, lovemaking, ugliness, and repression so real and raw that it might feel awkward and uncomfortable to watch Scenes From A Marriage with your own partner.

Such is the cinematic realism that the show achieves despite the device to break the wall in the opening sequences, that it is impossible you would not be left with questions of your own, that have nothing to do with Mira or Jonathan. Levi manages to create a certain bleakness in the interiors of Mira and Jon’s home. It is every bit a cosy, well-furnished American suburban home, which looks and feels lived-in, and yet it lacks life – just like their marriage. The camera work is superlative, especially in how it uses lighting to convey the emptiness the characters are feeling in their home that physically lacks nearly nothing. But just like the attic, that Mira never gets to refurbish, their marriage also remains incomplete, wherein certain areas remain completely untouched until they begin to crumble. [caption id=“attachment_10048431” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac in a still from Scenes From A Marriage[/caption] In a full circle of sorts – although the word “full” feels inaccurate in this regard – Mira and Jonathan find another side of each other in the attic. It is a few years after they have divorced, when we see them enter the attic for the first time as AirBnB guests, renting the home that is no longer theirs. In their nakedness, both literal and otherwise, they appear bound to each other as two people that are broken and broken up, who find it impossible to stay and even more impossible – if there is such a thing – to leave. When we see them wrapped in a moment of carnal abandon on their cellophane-wrapped green couch that Mira claims to be attached to, even as their divorce papers lie strewn about on the floor waiting for her signature, we do not know if we are seeing a vision of another rupture or healing. They do not know either. It is the kind of love, or whatever else one might choose to call it, that makes it hard to breathe, quite literally for an asthmatic Jonathan, but somehow, is the same love that provides both of them a kind of respite they will find nowhere else, not even in all the affairs they have. And the honesty that both Chastain and Isaac bring to their roles, makes it hard to dismiss Mira and Jon as despicable as they would appear on paper. The near complete lack of background score does not make this a comfort watch by any means – the rustle of sheets and clothes being packed into a suitcase, or footsteps storming down the stairs, lends it all a hyper-real, suffocating feel, heightening the ennui. And somehow, we know that nothing will ever really change for these two, who will continue this deranged dance around each other, cheating on the rest of the world, diagnosing their falling apart, and coming together over and over again, finally wrapped in the most honest relationship they have known, where it is impossible to stay, and even harder to leave. Scenes From A Marriage is streaming in India on Disney+ Hotstar Premium. Watch the trailer here

Kusumita Das is a freelance journalist from India currently living in Jerusalem. She writes on cinema, culture and travel, and in her free time tries to string together sentences in Hebrew.