September 21, 2021
Married couple Jonathan and Mira were both around 40 years old. They had a six year old daughter named Ava whom they dote on. He was Jewish, worked in the academe and took care of the house and child. She was a successful I.T. executive who was being assigned big projects at work, so only had her nights and weekends to spend at home. This series recounts five separate days, each several months apart, recounting five critical situations in the evolution of their relationship as a couple.
Based on a 1973 Swedish mini-series by Ingmar Bergman, this new series was about intimate conversations between Jonathan and Mira in their big house in the suburbs. Writers Hagai Levi and Amy Herzog wrote these conversations in a way they think couples would probably say them in real life if they were in these touching circumstances. In this show, we witness how arguments between a married couple can be so insensitive, self-centered, manipulative, bitter, hostile to downright cruel. It could feel contrived occasionally, unpleasant mostly.
The episodes had titles which you will think were probably revelatory of how the story was going to go, particularly Episode 1 ("Innocence and Panic"), 3 ("Vale of Tears") and 5 ("In the Middle of the Night, in a Dark House, Somewhere in the World"). However, it was Episode 2 ("Poli") and especially Episode 4 ("The Illiterates") which had the most explosive confrontations, and proved to be the most difficult, most harrowing episodes to sit through. I have to admit, this was a very tough watch for me as a husband.
What transpired in Episode 1 was so upsetting to me, I could not accept that it even happened. Episode 2 was just so devastating that I could not watch it straight through as I needed a break to breathe. Episode 3 and 4 further solidified my opinions about these characters as the story twisted and turned, only to be challenged again by Episode 5. Everything can feel too real, so director Levi had to remind us that this was just a movie after all by showing the actors off the set behind the scenes.
The totally committed performances of Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain make this couple worth watching. Even if we do not see exactly agree with what they were talking about, this show will affect you. We are intruding in their most private, most vulnerable moments, hearing issues from both sides, deciding for ourselves who was right and who was wrong. We are pitting our moral compass against theirs, our definition of love against theirs. This is thought-, emotion- and conscience-provoking TV, not really entertainment. 8/10.
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