Release Date: 30 December 2004 (Exclusively at Cathay Cinplex Orchard)

Synopsis :

Based on two works by Andre Dubus, WE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE is a provocative drama about married life and its discontents. Keenly observed, the film charts the affair of a married man with his best friend’s wife and how their liaison upsets the delicate balance of relationships, culminating in a fling between their spouses. Unfolding from four alternating viewpoints, the story captures the paradoxical actions of loving parents determined to save marriages they secretly long to escape, as the couples struggle through their emotional and sexual entanglement. WE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE reveals the perverse logic of infidelity -- and the complicity, denial and cruelty that can accompany it.

College instructors in a small university town, Jack Linden and Hank Evans have an easygoing friendship involving runs between classes and drinks at the pub after work. Jack’s wife Terry is best friends with Hank’s Edith, and the four have dinner parties where, once the kids have gone to bed, the wine flows freely and the record collection is in constant rotation.

But the Evanses and the Lindens are not the happy couples they appear to be. For Jack and Terry, the everyday tribulations of being parents of young children and trying to make ends meet have taken their toll on the once passionate couple. And Hank, a self-absorbed writer at heart, is fond of his daughter and family life, but not all that interested in monogamy, it turns out. Trying to find a way to make her marriage work under the new circumstances, Edith turns to Jack for comfort. What begins as a playfully lascivious affair erupts into a season of infidelity, leaving all four to sift through the emotional wreckage to find their way home.

Movie Review :

This emotionally draining adultery drama “We Don’t Live Here Anymore”, features a stellar cast of Laura Dern as a discarded wife trapped in a destructive marriage to Mark Ruffalo, the distracted husband and Naomi Watts as the unloved wife to the frustrated husband Hank, played by Peter Krause. Based on two short stories by Andre Dubus and expertly adapted by screenwriter Larry Gross and director John Curran, We Don’t Live Here Anymore is a daring and deep, at times almost unbearable, study of a fiercely intelligent depiction of marital disharmony.

On the surface they’re much the same—both men are college professors, while both women are caregivers to the children and unfortunately though, both are in a marriage that is disintegrating. The only difference, one silently endures and the other, an all out daily war.

Personally, emotional core of the film rests on the shoulders of Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern. Ruffalo turns in one of his characteristically modest, naturalistic, powerful performances; every motion and inflection paints a portrait of a deeply troubled, tired person. Dern, whose character cries and throws fits, feels authentic and interesting; even with her marriage all appearing to be the losing side of the battle, her strength and love stands strong. Krause and Watts are solid and steady in crucial supporting roles; and kudos to Krause too in his impressive first major big-screen role.

Although slow in pace, the most amazing part of this film is how perfect the dialogue captures the way the couples talk to each other. The lines flow realistically from one to the next, truly capturing how conflicts escalate and how people hurt each other with these words. The intense wordplay is so authentic it could have been taken from couples’ family counselling tapes during a crisis. It is so painfully stark and real that I think movie-goers will probably not endure watching these couples go through this all to familiar nightmare.

Movie Rating : B

Review by Dgital