A Good Marriage Review

I admit, I haven’t read nearly as much Stephen King as I’d like to pretend that I have. I have worked on several of his novels, and listened to a lot of different audio books. This is a movie that I didn’t really search out until now. I had some free time and wanted to see what it was all about. While I cannot speak to the collection of “Full Dark, No Stars”, I can at least talk about the movie as a whole, and well, it wasn’t what I thought. The marketing made it seem far more sinister than it really was, and while this is classified as a “psychological thriller”, I wanted it to be a full-fledged horror movie.

The lines are blurred in regards to horror movies today. “A Good Marriage” was marketed as something of a horror movie, but it’s ridiculous how neutered this movie seemed. The movie is a tightly wound film that really is fascinating at first glance. I tried to give it a lot of attention, and some serious thought, but it was a slow moving train that led to nowhere.

The premise is interesting enough. A wife finds out that her husband has a creepy secret. She figures out that he’s a serial killer and now must do one of two things. Tell the authorities or keep it in and just roll with it. The movie moves slowly into a psychological push, and eventually the climax reveals so much more. The most interesting part of this movie was the private eye that is on to the wife’s secret, or rather the husband’s secret.

The movie parts of this movie are slow. The processing seems a lot like a “lifetime” movie, rather than something that is supposed to be for theaters. Even though this was released to movie theaters, it isn’t really on par with the best in the business. This is NOT Stephen King’s best adaptation. “A Good Marriage” has some good moments, but more than ever, this seems like cash grab.

You can take your chances with “A Good Marriage” blu ray, or you could pick up “Full Dark, No Stars” for cheap. Either way, you can figure this one out on your own. I’m not a big fan of this movie. It just didn’t hit me like I thought it would. Joan Allen, Anthony LaPaglia, and Kristen Connolly do well enough, but there just seems to be something missing, and I can’t really put my finger on it. It happens from time to time.