I waited in vain for the DVD of the HBO remake of
_Scenes from a Marriage_ to come out. So streaming
it is! It turns out to be amazingly well-structured
and well-written, and the acting by Jessica Chastain
is somehow even more stratospherically stunning than
I have dared to imagine.

A proper review should include a comparison with
Ingmar Bergman's original miniseries. I have the
Criterion DVD of the Bergman film, condensed from
the TV series; one day I'll revisit it. I am still
recovering from _Faithless_, the Liv Ullmann film
shot from a Bergman script. It is a thinly disguised
semi-autobiographical story about Bergman's own love
life, the degradation and emotion torture that
lovers like Bergman and his circle (film and theater
directors, actresses) inflict on each other. It is
well made, but the premise seems to be an excuse to
unleash torture and humiliation on its characters.
You can say humiliation is its main character. I
will rely on the Wikipedia of the 1979 TV series
summary to make a comparison.

The 2021 "Scenes from a Marriage_ is refreshing
because it seems to have substantially updated the
characterizations. The gender roles are reversed,
with the wife leaving the house-bound husband and
the daughter. More significantly, they are given
extremely interesting back-stories. I wonder if
much of the credit doesn't go to the two Julliard
School graduates Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac;
Chastain in particular is famous for doing prodigious
research to construct character histories.

The story is set in snow-bound Boston, perhaps a
nod to the Scandinavian source. Each episode begins
with a break-the-fourth-wall segment that shows us
actors entering the set, while the house exterior,
shot on location elsewhere, also features prominently.
The exception is the finale, where the artifice is
highlighted at the end rather than the beginning,
as if to lighten the mood. By then years have passed
in the story, but winter never seems to recede.

In episode 1 we meet Chastain's Myra, a corporate
manager and one-time lady-of-action. She used to
dance, do drugs in board rooms, date rock stars,
but now appears stifled by husband Jonathan. She
is uncertain about her pregnancy; we watch her
emotional distress for an hour before learning
about this physical change. (As we will find
out, withholding critical information happens to
be Myra's trademark.) With hardly any make-up,
Chastain looks like the space-alien Yuk from
_Dark Phoenix_, and is as much mysterious. In an
ingenious bit of exposition also structured into
Bergman's original, the episode starts with a
student doing research on married couples.
Through the interview, which the reticent Myra
can barely sit through, we learn of her college
friendship with Jonathan that has soft-landed
into marriage. It has probably saved her life
after her multiple failed relationships, but the
unfortunate genesis sows the seed of its destruction.
Her husband, a professor at Tuft University, is a
gas-bag who confidently spews speeches at people.
His eloquence is in stark contrast to Myra's halting
sentences. We surmise that he seldom listens.

Nevertheless, Jonathan tries to be sensitive and
caring, and is especially close to the daugher.
He must think highly of the marriage. When Myra
returns from a business trip (she is always on
travels) and announces she is moving in with her
young lover Poti, he is blindsided, and tries to
vernally bludgeon her into postponement. (In a
miniseries with so many uncomfortable, naked
conflicts, his behavior here may well be the most
opressive.) Chastain give a heart-wrenching
account of her desperate need to leave; her Myra
alternates between tears and plantive cost-benefit
analysis ("this is good for me"; "this is good for
you"; but never "for us.") He tosses her aside to
pack her suitcase in his ultra methodical way.
It is telling that she is content to take off with
a suitcase of randomly thrown-together designer
clothes and high heels, while he is weighted down
by the house, by his books, furniture, sundry
belongings. Eventually he learns that his "friends"
all know about her affair before he does. At
last we see Isaac, who has coasted along stoically
in too many recent films, show real anger.

Episode 3 takes place months later. Myra has moved
in with Poti. They have a child custody-sharing
arrangement now. She returns to the house, physically
transformed, dressed-to-kill, her lipstick blood-red.
Her voice is now that of a corporate raider oily,
melodic, cocksure. I have always pictured Chastain
as Lady Jessica in _Dune_, and her natural, musical
voice would have been the perfect model for the Bene
Gesserit verbal persuasion trick! (Instead of the
gutteral hissing used in all adaptations.) As usual
Myra has something to hide. She seduces Jonathan and
tries to convince him to move with her to London along
with their daughter. Chastain gets to show off her
calculating, manipulative side; indeed her character
boasts that coworkers has complemented her for
rediscovering the real Myra. The episode is also a
showcase for Isaac, who discusses at length his strict
Jewish upbringing (not in Bergman's original) and his
sessions with his therapist (which was Liv Ullmann's
thing). His admission of longing for Myra is
shattering, even if one feels Jonathan is trading one
modes of oratorial arrogance for another. It turns out
he can keep secret too; Poti has texted him about
his breakup with Myra and her London plan, sabotaging
her element of surprise.

Episode 4 is the climax. I'm a huge fan of Chastain
and even I can't claim to have seen a performance of
hers this mercurial. As he forces the divorce papers
on her, she tries to engineer a reconciliation. She
transforms from the take-charge manager in corporate
armor to a pleading, pathetic child within an hour.
Her make-up seems to slowly disappear in the darkened
house too, regressing to the episode 1 look. Even her
business attire is a farce; she has been fired after
refusing the London promotion. When she reveals this
latest failure -- the final collapse of her identity
-- Jonathan cannot even bring himself to comfort her.
The closest thing she has done in this vein might have
been _Miss Julie_, which coincidentally was directed
by Liv Ullmann! It is another career high for Chastain,
another peak, signature performance. I still haven't
recovered from that tour de force showcase. I probably
never will.

Episode 5 is a graceful epilogue which takes place
another few years down the road. Improbably, the
remarried Jonathan and the newly devoted mom Myra have
partially reconciled and are having an affair. (This
seems scarcely plausible after their cathartic, violent
break-up, but this element is also in the Bergman
original.) They revisit their Boston home, now sold
and turned into an airbnb, and in the attic under the
stars they wonder what might have been. The only
complaint about the series is that the camera work
and set design pale in comparison with those of Benoit
Jacquot's _Suzanna Andler_, also adapted from a play.
Chastain would be so utterly amazing as a Jacquot heroine!

(for A.)