Scenes from a Marriage
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Is there such a thing as the right way to leave a marriage?
Is there a level of specificity or abstraction that can make it bearable?
Whats the best time of day?
Day of the week?
Month of the year?
to have pulled into Boston.
Is this a good time across the kitchen island on the heels of a work trip?
Will Jon forever associate the disintegration of his marriage with cold noodles straight from the Tupperware?
Mira isnt home when the episode opens.
Mira doesnt want to be home.
This isnt where Mirafeelsat home.
Time has passed since the abortion, and Jons new attic office is half-finished a metaphor, I suppose.
Jon and Mira have tried to move on, but the guts of their house are hanging out.
Miras lost interest in renovating in the project of putting things exquisitely in place.
After tucking in his daughter, Jon goes to his desk to watch porn and masturbate.
He listens to some music; he putzes.
Hes in the kitchen when Mira walks in the front door a day early.
Mira is a good mom.
She identifies problems and solves them even when shes not there.
Hes a good husband who doesnt want to cause headaches.
She cant find any charm in his scruffy edges.
Theres no easy way into this conversation, and Mira does admirably not to belabor it.
I fell in love with someone, she says.
Its unassailably true, and yet shes embarrassed by the strength of her conviction.
It sounds stupid, she adds.
The details tumble out quickly.
Poli is a 29-year-old Israeli CEO whose start-up has been acquired by Miras firm.
Hes not an intellectual, as Mira puts it.
She feels guilty, but the affair has been good for her, she says.
And how didnt Jon notice any change in her when she feels so profoundly different from the inside?
Mira avoids the only question that matters at this point: What happens next?
When Jon finally drags it out of her, the plan is astonishing.
Miras moving to Tel Aviv with Poli tomorrow, and theyll be gone for at least three months.
Its dramatic and cruel.
He can stay in the house, of course.
And, of course, shell pay for extra babysitting.
Its a tremendous ask, and yet Mira never quiteasksit.
Im leaving you, shell bark later.
Im not leaving her.
In the near term, though, theyll both feel discarded.
Why does it have to be tomorrow?
Jon wants to know.
Why not the day after that or next week?
Because if Mira doesnt leave this life right this very second, shes afraid she may never.
And also because Poli wants to fly tomorrow.
She has a new moon.
Is the best way to end a marriage abruptly or gradually?
Mira has wanted this for so long that shes impatient for the conversation to be finished.
She doesnt want to argue or explain or recriminate.
She just wants to leave.
He locks the front door against whatevers out there, but the house is already caving in.
She doesnt want to go to therapy or to try.
And shes willing to land some heavy blows.
Shes been thinking about leaving for eight months, she tells him.
Jon rarely speaks or needs to.
Mira puts the words in his mouth.
Shes spoiled and pathetic, he must think.
They may have problems no couples therapist could solve, but they also have some problems a therapist could.
They make assumptions about each others inner lives.
For example, Mira insists Jon could never forgive her for this betrayal.
Crucially, she doesnt want to be forgiven.
When Jon does interject, he mostly wants facts.
How did they meet?
Whats he look like?
How did it happen?
Poli liked that she didnt need to like everyone.
Jonathan wants a forensic accounting of the emotional, the physical, even the geographical.
Jon and Mira started having sex again around the same time she met Poli.
Does he know that?
Jon asks, desperate to keep a slice of her.
The acting is impeccably delicate, and the long scenes rise above their unavoidable cliches.
Breaking up when nothing is wrong is itself a cliche.
Perhaps the most worn-out cliche is Miras insistence that dissolving her family is whats best for them all.
Jon will be happier with someone new, and Ava will be happier when her mom has more patience.
Mira is making a fundamentally selfish choice not necessarily the wrong choice.
Poli is two halves of a conversation separated by a few hours of sleep.
It barely progresses, just coils deeper into itself.
Mira sobs when the lights go out.
When Jon stops holding her, she follows him across the bed.
These are maybe their last touches.
Is it better to linger and let the news sink in with the morning?
How do you reach the end of the end?
Ive never seen anyone pack this way.
The case wont close.
Jonathan, who has been watching, takes the items off the bulky hangers and folds them for her.
His need to be well-behaved is almost pathological.
He needs Mira to see that shes leaving a good guy.
When shes finally gone, he allows himself a breakdown.
He muffles his screams with his fists.
He calls Peter and Kate, who knew about the affair, and screams at them, too.
And then Ava appears at the foot of the stairs with her mothers red hair.
Mira is free; Jon is on duty.
In Bergmans miniseries, its the father who leaves for Paris.
In the year 2021, its certainly still more scandalous for the woman to walk out.
Even more interesting, I think, is what Levys retained from Bergmans leaving episode.
Well, that right there might be a sign of something, right?
Mira suggests to Jon.
Attention and observation are chiefly feminine concerns.
The closest Ive come to understanding why is identifying my own gendered assumption that women only leave by necessity.
To my mind, Johan wants to go; Mirahasto.
Johan will maybe come back, as Marianne suggests; Miracant.
