Audience Member
Like watching a train wreck as a marriage lurches toward ... we're not sure. A couple loves to hate each other and hates to love each other. It is classified as documentary/cinema verite. Long and bitter recriminations between Billy and Antoinette are interspersed with occasional moments of tenderness and touching scenes with their son Bogart and the family dog. Billy is insufferable for the most part as a domineering abusive retro man of the house (it's 1969) Antoinette for her part is not terribly well grounded. The ending seems headed toward separation; reconciliation does not seem possible; and oddly enough, divorce seems not likely. Sadly, they seem to have disappeared after this film.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/17/23
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Audience Member
Quite simply one of the most important documentaries I've ever seen. Marriage is an institution that undergoes a plethora of scrutiny and that receives a great deal of criticism. It is an attempt by two human beings (unless you're a polygamist I guess) to live together, which really means to explore, dissect, AND get smacked in the face by all of the minutiae of each other's egos. Therefore it shouldn't surprise anyone, regardless of their ideals, that many people get divorced. "A Married Couple" digs deeply and fairly, just as Allan King's film "Come On Children" dug deeply and fairly into the minds of adolescents. This is why Allan King is such an important filmmaker. I've now seen only two films by him and can still safely say that he truly created works of unwavering bravery and dedicated documentation. We get the sense that this filmmaker had an insatiable need to observe and record how and why human beings act as they do. What better subject to capture that than marriage? Billy and Antoinette Edwards are a couple who teeter back and forth, just as most married couples, between an almost childlike solidarity, to an aggressive, egotistical enmity. Most of us are familiar with this, but what the film is able to do is not to juxtapose but to conjoin the two polar opposites, which in turn says, Hey, you can't have one without the other. Also, the film captures brilliant moments that fleetingly pass in our regular day lives, and I noticed my own heart swelling at these cosmically tiny, though humanly essential events. One particular event is during a party Billy and Antoinette are attending. Antoinette has been, almost conspiringly, (or maybe it feels that way from the facial expressions and the events that have passed up to this point) talking about her marriage with another man at the party. Billy sarcastically and sardonically says, "I'll let you two talk." Later, there's a cut to a close up of Antoinette's running-makeup-face tearfully smushing against Billy's fatigued one. In the back we hear an almost mournful opera piece. I will say, and stand by this for good, that the shot of this is among the most powerful in the history of cinema. In that shot, we see spouses just as they are: troopers who venture into a dangerous and tiring arena, with only occasional moments of certainty, and who are absolutely exhausted by it, returning to one another even in the moments of complete misunderstanding and miscommunication. This is an important film and I think everyone should see it before marriage.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The squabbling gets a little repetitive, but this is still something worth seeing. They're almost alarmingly comfortable in front of the camera, and this was years before "An American Family".
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Intense and heartbreaking verite-style documentary that follows around a disintegrating couple and their child and dog.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Great movie, I'm amazed at the access the director had, and apparently at a time when being filmed was such an abstraction to the subject that it wasn't just an excuse to put on a performance for the camera. Every laugh and argument felt truly real, which at times makes this an exercise in extreme discomfort, if only for the fact that you feel you're watching something you shouldn't be. The simultaneous mutual loving/loathing, the tired desperation in wanting to salvage something unsalvageable. The love that still exsists, even as something crippled and worn thin. Really brought me back to my childhood.
This film made me happy that I'm not attractive/socially adjusted enough to get married. In fact, it's proof-positive that no one should get married, ever. And to bring kids into that mess...Jesus Christ.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
Full Review
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