Adaptations of Carrie, The Shining, Misery and The Shawshank Redemption have each played their part in establishing Stephen King as a brand beyond the literary world. Even today, a new King book or film can be a minor cultural event, so it seems surprising that this new adaptation, A Good Marriage, has flown under the radar like it has – at least until you actually watch it.
The film draws what little horror it has from the premise that Darcy (Joan Allen) suspects her husband Bob (Anthony LaPaglia) is a serial killer. It’s a classic ‘sleeping with the enemy’ set-up, but over 90 sluggish minutes it goes absolutely nowhere. The source novella is perhaps to blame – there are barely enough events here for 30 minutes, never mind triple that – but Shawshank was also a short story, and that turned out alright-ish. Really, the fault lies with director Peter Askin, who keeps us guessing who the real killer is for all of 40 minutes. What should be the supreme moment of tension, the pay-off to Allen’s competently acted suspicions, is thrown away halfway through the picture, possibly because Askin couldn’t think of anything better to put there. What’s left is a filmic play-through of The Sims, where people walk in and out of rooms in a nice suburban house, babble at each other, and occasionally die – brutally, hilariously. It’s only scary if you have a fear of Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia interacting with each other amidst soft furnishings and oak panel flooring.
To say that this isn’t joining the great King adaptations should be self-evident. In fact, it doesn’t even join the bad ones. A Good Marriage is so deeply mediocre that all it deserves is to be forgotten, and despite having King’s name over the title, that’s surprisingly easy to do.