Scenes from a Marriage (2021)

Based on the Ingmar Bergman television miniseries of the same name, HBO's Scenes from a Marriage brings the Swedish master's story of a couple falling apart into the 21st century. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain star as Jonathan and Mira, an affluent couple who met when they were both undergrads at Colombia University and reconnected years later, eventually ending up getting married after a two year courtship. Jonathan is a professor at Tufts University and is home most of the time raising their daughter while Mira is the vice president of an enormously successful tech company and the primary breadwinner for the family. Set over the course of five years in their marriage, each episode charts a different point in time during their relationship when a seemingly small incident is then magnified and explored in such minute detail as to make nearly everything around them seem completely earth shattering. The main draw here is the chemistry between Isaac and Chastain, who were classmates at Juilliard and later played husband and wife in the underrated and under seen A Most Violent Year (2014). The pair's rapport is the kind of thing you simply can't fake and it propels this vehicle beyond the realm of a mere retread of a major work by one of cinema's all time greats. Much to our chagrin, one area where they seem to be holding close to the original is in the lack of nudity, though Jessica Chastain does spend most of the debut episode braless in a sheer top! Thankfully this all changed in episode two when Chastain went fully nude in the shower! We mostly see her bare buns while showering, but when she turns the water off and begins to towel off, we get glimpses of her breasts and bush!