Scenes from a Marriage
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Theyre not wearing clothes.
When they talk, they almost breathe the words.
They blew up their lives and sold their house.
Now, theyre paying a nightly Airbnb rate to sleep amidst the well-appointed rubble.
Its a metaphor that lends their recklessness the patina of romance.
Jonathan has a second kid at home and his first wife in his bed.
He has less to give Mira, but isnt that what she ultimately wanted?
Jonathan without the devotion, without his unrelenting expectations.
They cant move out of each others lives any more than they can leave the house.
Whats less romantic than equivocation?
His dad was a dick.
Intriguingly, hes behaving as moralizing as Mira always insisted he could be.
At least we stayed together, his mother points out.
They didnt get a divorce and pretend it was for their kids sake.
Even following 30 days of shloshim, Mom can land a punch.
It occurs to me that Jonathan hasnt gotten new eyeglasses in four years.
Mira is back in Boston having a business lunch with Poli, who is incredibly good-looking.
She looks like the median of all the Miras weve met.
She seems breezier, too, and her answers uncalculated.
Poli wants to hang tonight, but Mira has plans with Ava.
Its curious to watch her give Poli a pass that shed never grant Jonathan.
Maybe she wasnt pathologically defensive, just extremely invested in Jonathans good opinion of her.
Shes still a liar, though.
When night falls, she pulls her family-unfriendly vintage Benz into a train-station parking lot.
Hair down, makeup did, Ava at a sleepover.
He drives; she calls him mister.
The dynamic is more flirtatious than romantic, more silly than sensual.
He surprises her by parking in front of the old house.
Theyre clearly having an affair, but this gesture feels like love.
When he says hes rented it for them for the night, she doesnt balk at the sentimentality.
Im disproportionately fascinated by Mira in this episode.
The way she lingers, arms folded, in the foyer the tight space where she signed her divorce.
She reluctantly walks the rooms as Jonathan moves ahead, anticipating the light switches.
After all, this was Jonathans idea.
The office is now a sitting room.
Avas bedroom belongs to two brothers.
Jonathan and Mira drink and tease and touch.
Whatever theyre doing, theyre having fun.
For the most part, conversation flows unguardedly.
Jonathan is something of a success now, but his mom wont acknowledge that shes proud of him.
Is this a fling?
A cryptic warning shot in her signature style.
When Jonathan pries about her dating life, she stonewalls him.
Jonathan cant understand, she argues, because he needs a witness to his life.
Negging is Miras aposematism, but Jonathan insists hes unbothered.
Maybe hes secretly satisfied by the way her justifications jump around uneasily.
Being single is refreshing, she says.
She doesnt have the monogamy gene or whatever.
When they go up to their old bedroom, though, the situation deteriorates.
They cant get comfortable cosplaying the Jonathan and Mira who shared a last name.
Instead of sex, Jonathan has the first asthma attack weve seen since Mira left him.
Hes putting on his clothes and looking for his inhaler when his new wife calls.
Their baby, Ethan, is teething.
Jane thinks Jonathan is still with his family.
Its fitting to find out that hes the one with something to lose here.
Would Mira be so keen if he were more available?
She explores the attic, renovated into a teenage-girl paradise of Polaroids and string lights.
This is what I missed out on, Jonathan says when he joins her.
For once, though, it seems that Miras mistaken.
Jonathan confesses that this isnt his first affair.
He feels guilty about the infidelities, but the guilt isnt enough to dissuade him.
Jonathan didnt want to marry Jane, but she got pregnant, and he wanted the kid.
Which is not to say he doesnt love her.
Shes the first Jewish woman hes dated since college, and theres consolation in a shared set of customs.
What if she finds out about us?
WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN, MIRA?
Jonathan isnt especially fussed.
He knows something will break them up eventually.
Ill never love anybody the way I loved you, he tells Mira.
Its a sad notion, unknowable and yet self-fulfilling.
Whats gross to me is how it intersects with this conversation about integrity within his marriage.
Perhaps Jonathan was always selfish in this way, even when he was married to Mira.
The difference wasnt that he didnt want to cheat.
How easy it is to be moral when our morals align with our preferences.
Miras teary listening to Jonathan diminishes his experiences of love.
If even Jonathan has given up on love, how can anyone expect to find it?
She calls the trauma of divorce endless a loss profound as death.
She wants to sit shiva for it.
No one leaves the house; everyone consoles them.
The mutual experience of their divorce is more bonding than Jonathans marriage.
Jonathan and Mira pet each others faces.
They keep each other close until a nightmare shakes Jonathan awake.
Maybe it is real love?
Shes interested in his secrets again.
In his nightmare, he cant cross the road to his own family.
Its the last half-decade of his life distilled.
Mira offers to get him some water, but Jonathan just wants to stay in bed.
Sometimes hes afraid that hes never truly loved anyone or been loved.
His wife left him, his mother didnt comfort him.
But Mira loves him, however deranged, and hell always love her, however complicated.
They hold each other, presumably into sleep.
Maybe the idea that they belong to each other is just as temporary.
How can he feel about Mira now how he felt before?
We dont find out.
Someone calls cut, and Mira and Jonathan become Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac.
What Chastain and Isaac created was claustrophobic, exacting, awful, and hot.
I wanted to find myself shivering.
Instead, Im left with the barbs of Poli and Jonathans mom echoing in my head.
Maybe Mira doesnt know love.
Maybe Jonathan only has himself in mind.
What does it matter, and what was any of it for?
