WEB LINKS » Critics.com » Official Site » IMDb Listing

A successful, seemingly happily married man (Chris Cooper) announces to his best friend (Pierce Brosnan) that he is leaving his wife (Patricia Clarkson) for a younger woman (Rachel McAdams). However, he can't bear to see her getting hurt in the process, and he determines that he must murder her, as painlessly as possible. Also with David Richmond-Peck, David Wenham and Annabel Kershaw. Directed by Ira Sachs. [1:30]

SEX/NUDITY 3 - A woman wearing a long, low-cut slip lies on a sofa, a bare-chested man enters the room, leans over her, they kiss and the man caresses her clothed breast (they are interrupted by a man looking at them from a window).
► A husband and a wife kiss (she is wearing a long, low-cut slip). A man and a woman in a movie kiss. A husband and a wife kiss and hug (she is lying in bed wearing a full-length slip). A man and a woman kiss in several scenes. A man and a woman hug. A man kisses a woman on the cheek.
► A woman lies nude in bed (her bare back to the hip is visible) and it is implied she and a man have had sex; the man, wearing underwear, then sits in a nearby chair watching her.
► A husband and a wife wearing pajamas lie in bed together (she wears a low-cut negligee that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders).
► A man and a woman dance together and he later touches her hand (she pulls away). A man asks for a woman's cigarette because it had been touching her lips; she gives it to him and he puts it in his mouth.
► Drawings accompany the opening credits and include women in low-cut tops that reveal cleavage, one woman is seated in a seductive pose with her skirt raised to the thigh, a man's hand touches the bare shoulder of a woman, and a bare foot caresses the ankle of a man.
► A man talks about leaving his wife for another woman. A husband and wife talk about what love is and she says, "Love is sex." A man says he "wants more than sex" out of a marriage. A man talks about a woman being "frigid in a Freudian way."

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A man drives recklessly, he speeds and is pulled over by the police.
► A man buys a chemical from a photography supply store and plans to use it to kill his wife. A husband pours a chemical powder into a medicine bottle and hands it to his wife.
► A man breathes heavily and holds his chest when he finds his wife in bed motionless (he is afraid she is dead). A man becomes anxious when he tries to call home and cannot get through to his wife.
► A woman cries and calls for her husband when she finds her dog dead on the floor (we see the dog lying motionless on the floor); the man digs a hole in the backyard and buries the dog. A woman cries and begins to breathe heavily, and her husband calls a doctor thinking she is having a heart attack (she's OK).
► A woman yells at her dog. A man talks about leaving his wife for another woman. A woman talks about her husband having gone missing during a war and that he was declared dead. A woman talks about her father dying from cancer. A man picks up a hitchhiker who talks about his sister having died and that she died a slow and painful death.

PROFANITY 1 - 1 mild obscenity. [profanity glossary]

SUBSTANCE USE - People are shown drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes at a club, people are shown drinking alcohol at a restaurant, people are shown drinking alcohol at a party, and men and women are shown drinking alcohol in several scenes. Men and a woman smoke cigarettes in many scenes throughout the movie, and a man smokes a pipe. A woman says that her father "was a drunk."

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Marriage, love, sex, affection, companionship, happiness, building happiness on the unhappiness of others, selfishness, humiliation, conscience, women's intuition, infidelity, sentimentality, betrayal, lying, romance, emotions, disillusionment, jealousy, abandonment, death of parents, death of loved ones.

MESSAGE - Married life and love are complicated, and it's not clear that many people actually know what they want and need.

Special Keywords: S3 - V3 - P1 - MPAAPG-13