The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A Good Marriage: Based on a Stephen King story with a screenplay by King. A thriller rather than Horror but not too many thrills so best to concentrate on the Serial Killer angle. Joan Allen is married to Anthony LaPaglia for 25 years and suddenly finds evidence which suggests that he's a Serial Killer and a really brutal one at that. He admits to it and they enter a pact where she will remain silent and he promises to quit his nefarious activities. After all their daughter is getting married the next week and the scandal would ruin the reception.Will he hold to his promise? Is Allen at risk? Who is the mysterious character keeping watch on their house? On Netflix. 6/10.

This really comes across as a TV movie. There is nothing special about it. The styling is very much 'stepford wives' in that it portrays a perfect American family, a perfect marriage that others are envious of. No hair out of place, a couple who have been married 25 years yet still have sex, still love each other and take pride in how they look.That all comes to a screeching halt when Darcy stumbles across the fact that her husband is a serial killer.My thoughts are that this film is watchable but I wouldn't rate it as particularly good. It's passable at best.

Sometimes it all comes down to expectations. Maybe it's because I've seen a good number of Lifetime movies (over my wife's shoulder of course, in bits and pieces), but compared to the lot of those I found this to be good, quite good. I have a feeling "Uncle Stevie" wanted to do his own take on those kind of often cheesy "thrillers" and somehow through his script (based on a story from 'Full Dark, No Stars') found a way to make it an actual tense and weird dramatic thriller with two excellent performances.I say 'weird' since a lot of this comes off not unlike a dream at times - there's a whole bedroom conversation Joan Allen has with Anthony LaPaglia that I thought at first was an Ambien-induced nightmare of some kind - and there's a whole question of morality to the thing. It shouldn't be some surprise that Allen's character finds out her husband has killed people and has been hiding about it for a very long time. So why doesn't she turn him over to the police? Would you if you found out your significant other killed someone? It's always easier to say than in actual practice, and what I responded to here is that King lets the audience read into Allen's character what they may.In other words, it's King playing in Hitchcock's sand-box (this is more in the writing, the direction is just OKAY TV style, though the use of 2:35 widescreen is a nice touch). Again, it's not anything that you should immediately rush out to see, and of course there are better King adaptations. Though on the other hand I think this is also superior to some of the other overlong King mini-series works (The Shining, anyone?) and I think thanks to the actors on hand, especially Allen who is finding subtlety and nuance to play in almost every moment, it makes it credible. There's even a scene near the end in a hospital room - and all the more incredible since you know King is hit or miss at endings - which is flat out great.So for a trashy TV movie-of-the-week kind of deal, it's almost a minor miracle this is as good as it is, genuinely so, not a 'so-bad-it's-haha' thing. If King had maybe curbed some of the weirder elements - I half expected most of the movie, not just a few scenes, to be some overlong nightmare, which would have made it tremendously experimental - it'd be even stronger.

If it were not for Joan Allen's commitment to her role, I would say an absolute zero. This movie isn't suspenseful. In fact, it comes off as darkly humorous which may be the point. But, it's such a fine line that you can't but feel what this movie could've been.This movie is about talking in rooms. And the mundane life of marriage. Then they add in a twist, and the twist, had it been 1980's would've been groundbreaking. Now, because of our "48 Hours Mysteries" or "American Crime" shows, the shock value falls flat. And that's unfortunate for the material, because it does have nice moments. But it never comes together to feel like a completely movie. There are throwaway scenes, characters popping in and out, who are superfluous (which I'm sure in the book made more sense). And overall, the relationship between Allen and Anthony LaPaglia (who plays the husband) never felt right. No matter how often they professed their love of each other. The other frustrating thing about this movie is it never establishes a person we can identify with. I suppose Stephen Lang's character who comes in way too late. So it's strange it never fully taps the moments that could've uplifted it into something darker. LaPaglia's character (Bob) would've been better suited for someone more midwestern normal like Terry O'Quinn. Man, that guy is scary just being normal. Or Dylan Baker.Finally, the look of the movie. It's flat and dull. Every King movie up to this point is lens'd like a movie. This looks like a Lifetime special. Which I can't blame them, since it's digital and looks digital.There's suppose to be grit to movies. This looks like a student shot it. Awful. It actually took me completely away from the content of the movie. It had a phony sense to it. Done to extreme, say...a Douglas Sirk view, it would add a style to the material. This just seemed lost to what it wanted (or survival of coverage, just to get it shot). Either way, it's not a disaster of a movie. But it leaves you disappointed that King would slap his name on this.