revolves around a toxic heterosexual marriage dynamic you’ve certainly seen a thousand times before, if not in real life then at least in pop culture. Annette is the long-suffering wife, who’s sacrificed her career to cook and clean and raise children for an ungrateful man. Ben is that ungrateful man, who seems to notice Annette only when he’s ticked off with her.
When a glamorous actress enters their lives via a movie role for their daughter , it’s practically a foregone conclusion that Ben will further neglect Annette in favor of this shiny new romance. The big question, then, is what Annette might do — what a woman already on the edge might prove capable of once she’s pushed.
Likewise, Alicia is presented not as a woman on her own journey but as a symbolic ideal for Ben to project his aspirations onto, or for Annette to compare herself against. As Ben and Alicia’s flirtation heats up over text, Alicia is increasingly portrayed not as herself but as Ben’s fantasy of her, director Sam Yates’ camera zooming in on her smile as she coos sweet nothings under a dreamy glow.‘s deeper psychological waters, with mixed results.
If we understand Annette perfectly well as an unhappy wife and mother, however, the deeper hows and whys of her life are left unexplored. Tom Bateman’s screenplay does not let on what Annette ever saw in Ben, what she stands to lose if he leaves, what she hopes might happen instead.
Worse, when the movie finally shows its cards, its hand proves underwhelming — the entire thing rests on a twist that’s not very difficult to guess, but that nevertheless gets a whole-style ending montage in case you weren’t paying attention. Meanwhile, though the narrative is ostensibly driven by big feelings and outrageous choices, the film finds neither earnest pathos nor nasty thrills in Annette and Ben’s predicament.
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