A Good Marriage (2014)

I'm a huge Stephen King fan, the man is a genius when it comes to books. When it comes to his books becoming movies, not so much though. Don't get me wrong, some Stephan King books have translated into film's quite well, however "The Good Marriage" is not one of those.

I'll start off by saying I did not read the story that this film is based on. I'm not sure if the movie does it justice or not, I hope not though. The entire thing was just so slow and not entertaining at all. The story is very basic and really hardly goes anywhere. The acting is also pretty bad, some of the delivered lines were cringeworthy.

I really don't have much good to say about this film other than the last 15 minutes was alright. I really feel bad bashing it, because I wanted to like this movie. Just had a really really really hard time finding something to like about it.

3/10

Fmovies: I was disappointed to read that the screenplay for this was actually written by Stephen King himself. I was entirely ready to chastise whoever had adapted his novella because, ironically, it felt nothing like a King movie whatsoever. Compared to another 2014 King adaption from the same collection of short stories 'Big Driver', which had King's signatures written all over it, this just came across flat, uninspired and lazy. The theme of both of those films is 'Girl Power' but only one truly encapsulated it for me and it certainly wasn't this one.

The main problem that comes to mind over this film is just how dull it is. The casting choices are about as uninspired as you'll ever get, the script just drags on and on and there are enough "it's all a dream" moments for a decades worth of movies let alone one. The character of Bob would have to be the most boring serial killer I've ever seen in a movie. There was absolutely no edge to the character and even the stalking scenes just don't feel the least bit threatening. All of this does unfortunately come back to the script written by King. The man can write a fine book but maybe he should leave the screenplays alone for the time being.

Even though author Stephen King's name is frequently used as a marketing tool, it might be damaging in the case of the film A Good Marriage, because the reference to the "Master of Horror" creates very different expectations to what this movie offers. To start with, A Good Marriage isn't a horror film, but a boring thriller lacking of energy, suspense or atmosphere, and with weak performances from Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia. The main problem of A Good Marriage is that it needed more... something. Whatever it could be. More atmosphere, more suspense, more twists. Anything to make it even remotely interesting. To be fair, I haven't read the short story on which A Good Marriage is based, so I can't determine whether the problem comes "of origin", or whether the film couldn't find the proper angle to adapt the story in a more attractive way. But, well... I used to be a fan of King's in previous decades, and I know that his prose is particularly difficult to be translated to cinema, because his characteristic literary "voice" is the first thing to be eliminated when writing a screenplay, something which leaves us with a distillation of characters and concepts which aren't always enough to support a film, unless the movie counts with the necessary ingredients (style, atmosphere, performances) to compensate those things which were lost during the transition. Unfortunately, A Good Marriage couldn't fulfill with those conditions, and I can't recommend it.

A Good Marriage fmovies. I watched this today and I was on the edge of my chair, I thought it was very good and I highly recommend this movie. I thought this was one of the best of Stephen Kings stories. It was suspenseful and I wonder what I would do if I was in Mrs. Anderson's shoes.

I read the story before I saw the movie and although there were some changes to the script that I thought were not improvements, I was still surprised to see the film was enjoyable and was a great psychological exploration of what a woman in that horrible dilemma might go through. The story is not about the horrors of serial killers or the supernatural horrors one might expect from King but its about the emotional horror of choosing to live with a secret of unimaginable bearing. I think that the reason many people think this is boring is because that idea went right over their heads. Watch the film amd read the story. Both are great!

"She knew nothing." Darcy (Allen) and Bob (LaPaglia) have been married for 25 years and are extremely happy. When Bob is gone on business Darcy begins looking around for her stashes of chocolate. What she finds is the missing ID for a woman that was recently killed by a serial killer. Coming to grips with the fact that her perfect husband is an evil being she isn't sure how to react. The reason that Stephen King is known as the master of horror is because the things he writes about are realistic enough for you to thinkÂ… this could happen to me. This movie is no exception. An ordinary loving couple that seem perfect at first but then a dangerous secret is discovered and everything changes. There is not a crazed killer in a mask attacking people at random, nor are there people being dismembered just for effect. This one is terrifying because the killer could be someone you know and if that's the case how would you deal with it. Especially knowing that if you are married to a serial killer will the police really believe you had no idea what was going on? Like any good King story this one keeps on on edge and you aren't sure if what you are seeing is real or imagined. The only real downside to this is that it had the feel of a made for TV movie. Other than that I have to say this is worth seeing. Overall, Stephen King once again proves that reality is the most terrifying thing of all. I give this a B+.