The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Scenes From a Marriage’ Recap

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson share their thoughts on HBO’s ‘Scenes From a Marriage' and discuss how the series adds to the divorce genre. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Production Assistant: Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Brok-combed you put on her. You have been warned. Obsession. Readed R. Under 17, animated, without parent. Only in theaters of May 15. with special engagements in Dolby. Hello and welcome to the Prestige TV podcast here on the Ringer Podcast Network.

I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today to talk about television, talk about love, talk about life, talk about longing. It is my co-host, Ringer, senior staff writer, Joanna Robinson. Oh, hello. Can I add another L to the mix? Please. Loss. Loss.

Indeed. Good morning. Loss. It's a little light loss chat in the morning. Let's do it. We're here, you know, early this morning, early this day to talk about all of those things. Because we're talking about scenes from a marriage. The HBO five-part mini-series starring Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, that concluded its run on

Sunday night finale wrapped up. We're here to talk about this 2021 version. We're going to talk a bit about the Bergman original

from the 70s. We're going to talk about marriage and life and all of it before we dive in quick programming reminder for anyone tuning in today.

Prestige TV podcast. Follow it. On Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, Joanna, Sean, Chris, was,

everyone's about to dive into succession. Succession season three is just around the band and there will be so much succession talk coming on the Prestige TV pod feed, as well as plenty of pods on all of your other favorite prestige TV shows, so make sure you are following along. Today's prestige TV selection is the aforementioned scenes from a marriage. We have a lot to hit today.

I'm curious before we talk about this miniseries itself, to just pan back as some scene-setting context here and ask about your feelings on the divorce genre more widely. Are stories about marriage and divorce something that you're generally drawn to? It's so funny. So, you know, this is five episodes about the dissolution of a marriage

and what comes after, right? And when we were talking about covering it, you and Bilsom's both were sort of talking about the divorce genre. and I don't think I'd ever thought about it as a genre. Obviously, it is a genre, but I'd never, I had never grouped it that way, and I'd never sought it out or avoided it or anything like that. But then I had to start thinking about this show in the context. And you mentioned an iconic film in your discussion of it. And guess what, Mal?

I had never seen it. And as part of all of this, I watched Kramer and Kramer. Finally, I've covered versus Kramer. I'd never seen, I don't know why. No way. Yeah, but I finally saw it. A big, big moment, big time for me. Oh, well, now I just want to do the podcast on that.

What did you think? Yeah, I thought it was incredible. Yeah. You know, I knew its place sort of in the American film Pantheon. I knew that allegedly divorce rates rose after and all the sort of stuff like that. But it's such an – I didn't know – I don't know. I don't think I even knew the tone of it. I thought it was like a melodrama, but it's not quite that.

But anyway, you know, watching Dustin Hoffman. and Merrill Streep work out the end of their marriage and their custody of their kid. Dear Billy. I think is really useful in all this. But thinking about divorce as a genre, what I really discovered that I love about the divorce genre, which goes all over the place. You could have your Mrs. Doubtfires and your stepmoms and your, you know, whatever you want, your Blue Valentine's, et cetera, harrowing, Blue Valentine. But my favorite part of a divorce story, if there is one to have, is this idea of coming back together after acrimony and finding, you know, peace and connection with each other.

And that's almost, to me, almost a more beautiful, like, realistic love story than all the happily ever afters we get. because happily ever after, that's just where the story decided to end. But like, we know the realities of relationships, right? And it's just like it doesn't often end or always end in happily ever after. And so this idea of like, this is so much more realistic that like things will fall apart, but you can still be humans who love each other. And oftentimes in those stories where that connection persists, there's a child or multiple children involved, right? Because that's the connective tissue that will keep two people together.

after the end of a marriage. Doesn't need to be the only thing, but it is a common thing. So, I don't know, those are some of my loose divorce genre thoughts. What do you think about? Wow. I'm so excited to just keep talking about Creamer versus Creamer with you. One of my all-time favorite movies. I just love that film.

I find it absolutely devastating, but also sort of inspiring. I love the divorce genre. as a child of divorce. And now as a married person, you know, I, I, one of the things that I'm always interested in thinking about in general with stories, not specific to divorce stories, is like shifting perspective across your life, right? And the way that I watch the Game of Thrones pilot now is different than the way that I watched it when I first saw it.

The way that I read it, Harry Potter now is different than the way that I read it, etc., etc., etc., etc., right, married examples. And when I was younger and watched Kramer versus Kramer, I watched that purely through the perspective of a child whose parents were divorced, right? And when I watched marriage story recently a couple years ago, I watched that almost purely through the perspective of a married person, which is just really interesting to me. And I think I still maintain both of those perspectives.

and I, you know, I approach the story. And certainly I think the emphasis inside of the story, like even with both versions of scenes from marriage, I think one of the things that we'll discuss today is the role that the child or children play or don't play in each version, right? Because Ava, the child in the modern retelling, is very present as probably overstating it,

but is present, is a figure in the tale, is there as someone we see and meet and interact with. And that is not the case. in the Bergman original. The children are almost an abstraction, right? We hear them mentioned. So part of it is how a story is structured in terms of what I'm maybe more likely to latch on to.

But again, I think part of it is where we all are as we come to a story in our lives. Kramer versus Kramer is an all-time for me. I absolutely loved marriage story. I thought it was just devastating. That movie wrecked me. I was like, not that awards are the final arbiter of quality And obviously, like, Laura Dern won an Oscar out of marriage story.

But I was like, clean, sweep, Scarlet, Adam, Best Picture. That's sort of like where all that was sitting in my heart that year. And then I was sort of surprised it didn't land that way with everyone. But, yeah, I thought that was an incredible film. And, and owes a lot. Of course, the scenes for marriage, like consciously so. You know what I mean? Very much so.

And I think that's one of the interesting things is, like, how much of a touchstone, the Bergman original, which I had never seen until yesterday. I watched that after watching the HBO miniseries, but how much of a touchstone that is for so many stories, not only about divorce precisely, but about marriage or long-term relationships and working your way through all of the ebbs and flows that are a part of that.

The Squid and the Whale is another divorce movie that I absolutely love. You already mentioned Blue Valentine. I'm glad you mentioned Mrs. Dalfire, because that's something I was thinking about, too, like whether it's Mustafire or parent trap or step by step. Like stories where divorce plays a role don't always have to be these deeply dramatic, intense tales.

But I do find myself drawn to stories where blended families or different family dynamics are central in some way to the cast of characters. And then like you look at the whole link later. filmography and whether it's like the role divorce plays in a story like boyhood or, you know, the before trilogy, which is just very dear to me. And I love those movies so, so, so much. And it's interesting because, you know, Link Later, Ethan Hawke, like when talking about those movies, they'll cite as many people do, right, in the present day scenes from a marriage. And it's interesting because I don't think about the before movies as movies about divorce.

I think of them about movies about a great love story that is often imperfect and often very hard, right? And that the draw of the story is not the idea to your point earlier about a happy ending or marriage or anything that's tied up in an idea or a term or phrase. It's what it looks like to grow together and then to grow apart, right? and to try to decide to work your way back together or to decide that that's not what you want. And maybe that's okay and maybe it isn't, right?

And life is not like about these easy divisions and binaries. Like you're not happy or sad, right? You can want to be together and really not enjoy being together. And I love the richness of stories about divorce and marriage for that reason because it feels so true to life. Like things are not simple. things are not easy. And the thing that I think I loved most about

to switch to the show that we're actually here to talk about, the HBO version of this, was that particular examination. The passion dies, right? That's a given. That's like the one thing you can say with basically certainty about relationships. And then it's like what fills that void?

Is it the decision to work towards something together? Yeah. Is it resentment? Is it the reality that the only thing you want more than being away from the person next to you on the green couch is to be near the person next to you on the green couch and how do you reconcile that dissonance? Like that's a very rich text to examine in a story. To track the trajectory of everything. And I don't know if people expect us to talk about Mrs. Doubtfire in the context of scenes from marriage. But, you know, when you think about the Bergamount original, which was a mini-series and then was cut into a theatrical release, which is wild to cut something down from like six hours to, is it two and a half hours? How long is the theatrical?

It was like nearly three. Nearly three hours. And that's what I watched, by the way. That's available to watch on HBO Max currently. Same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same. And like, you know, that comes out in 73. And Kramer versus Kramer doesn't come out until 79. So, you know, we think about how influential Kramer versus Kramer was, and it was, but that this was so foundational to that. You don't have Kramer without Bergman. You don't have, I think, a lot of, for better or worse, Woody Allen's like Uber without Bergman. And you don't have all the things that followed Woody Allen.

And so I think a couple things are true that that Frank look at marriage at divorce, at sexuality. I was shocked and delighted by some of the, like, you know, sexual empowerment of characters in Bergman's version. And I don't know. I just, I think it's, it was a big thing that was missing from my understanding of everything. But what's interesting is that when I watched Mrs. Doubtfire as a young kid, I had at that point, I don't know, grown up on the parent trap or a few other things or whatever else I had seen, the people who got divorced always got back together. This idea of like the comedy plot of remarriage of like, you know, we fell apart, but we're the whole love stories about us coming back together. That's one of my favorite versions of a love story is like two people who've known each other and come back together, much due about nothing, et cetera.

But Ms. Delfare ends and it's still a happy ending, even though like Rob Williams and Sally Field do not get back together. And what's interesting is when I watch it now, Mrs. Delfire, I'm like, that was never going to happen. But as a kid, I was. like, obviously, they're going to get back together. I was shocked, shocked that Pierce Broson sticks around. So anyway, I don't know. It's an interesting, it's a really, really interesting kind of story. This idea of a mostly two-hander story is really interesting and challenging.

This is something that, like, I wanted to talk to you about in general, which is, like, Hagai Levy, the person who decided to adapt this from the original Ingmar Bergman. He has done a couple other major shows for cable. A passion of yours is The Affair. Passion of Mining is In Treatment. And I think you can see the blend of Intreatment and the Affair in this show. In Treatment, I don't know if you watched any of it or the most recent season, but the most recent season with Uzo Dubo, which was 22 episodes, are largely these sort of like in one room, two-hander,

theatrical feeling by theatrical, I mean like the third. theater like you know Broadway uh the stage the stage uh you know that's that's the space we're in and that's a space we're in for this like jessica chastea and oscar isaac are both people have done a lot of theater and so i think you know they're fairly at home in these like one set two actors for most of of the series so i don't know like what what uh the affair DNA do you see in all of this I guess that manifested in multiple respects. I mean, obviously the idea of monogamy is at the four here.

You know, the friend couple Peter and Kate in the 2021 version are in an open marriage. And, you know, one of the interesting things, again, because I hadn't seen the original when I watched the new version.

So I just see Corey Stoll and assume that his character is going to be a major part in this story, right? But that is, of course, not the case. Like that whole sequence is there to prime us in a couple different respects, right, for the different forms that relationships can take, for the way that people can choose to try to navigate their desire with themselves, with each other, what level of candor you have with your partner about what you want, or what you need. But it's also there to sort of set this false expectation for us about what the

main characters of the story are actually thinking about their relationship, right? And before we get that dinner sequence about the open marriage, we get the interview sequence, and you're weaving in and out very early from this, like, clear, palpable unhappiness, but you don't know what is causing it, right, to then this contrast between another couple that seems to be struggling more openly. And then you're thrust into this unraveling, but not an unraveling that is tidy, right? It's messy, as unravelings often are. So the idea that it starts with all these other people and then really narrows in scope to focus on this one setting, this, you know, the home, the marriage, the people who are in it. Like the affair, as a point of contrast,

has a million moving parts and the actual structure of it is oriented around the idea, at least initially. It just... That show went through some shifts over the course of its season. Some personality changes, yeah.

Yeah. You know, the beginning of the affair every episode was structured around the idea of unreliable narration, not only with each other, but, you know, with ourselves, right? Like how do we remember the events of our own life and each episode is structured around. In essence, the same sequence of events told from two different character perspectives.

But the characters whose perspectives were tapping into it to like just a wider set ultimately. So I thought that the fact that this was so intimate was one of the things about it that was most effective. You know, we're going to talk a little bit later. We can just do it now about the fourth wall breaking like COVID cam technique. opens, I believe, the first four episodes and then concludes the fifth and why that choice was made. But the effect that it had on me just watching it before I read anything about it or learned why that choices had been made, you know, you already mentioned the theater and the stage. And it just had this very, like, overt sensation of these are actors who are walking out on a stage to bring this parable to us, right?

It's not actually about those two characters. And there's a lot of, like, dissonance tied up in that because, again, it feels so precise and specific to their lives because the focus is so intimate and tender and often painful as a result. But they're stand-ins, right? They're stand-ins for the idea of a relationship over time. And that, I think, central question of, you know, growth, right? Like, you are going to grow and change is a purpose. person.

Your relationship, you will change with your partner. Sometimes those things are going to run in parallel, and sometimes they aren't. Yeah, it's really interesting to me. I had the exact same response to the little preamble to every episode. It did feel like watching an actor walk out on the stage take their place and then the lights go up. And I actually kind of loved it. I think you called in our notes like COVID cam, because they're, you know,

see everyone in masks and stuff like that and the tape measure of just like all the sort of stuff. Like, you know, you're, there's a lot of that baked into it. But it's interesting. I read a bunch of interviews that, um, the guy I love he gave. And every single time someone asked me this question, his initial first sentence, he would say something like, it was just an instinct. Like he himself didn't even know why he was doing it. And then he has a bunch of other things that he worked through in terms of like the American

of the story and how he's not an American. And so this idea of how he felt a little bit removed from all of it. And, you know, there's all these layers and layers and layers of, I think he's still working through why he did it. There's this quote that he gave to the great Melanie McFarlane at Salon where he says, it was a way to say there's something a little bit artificial about it and I'm not going to hide it. Actually quite the opposite.

I'm going to put a focus on it to tell you this is more of a, conceptual of abstract discussion about monogamy. So that I thought exactly what you're saying, where these are supposed to be not a specific story, but a bigger general story of things a marriage can go through. But to your point, something that also happened when, basically like the way that this project came to, Higai Levy, is that Daniel Bergman, who is Ingmar Bergen's son, came to him and said, I want you to do this. And also, can you make the kids actually part of it?

Because my dad did this big, huge, very famous story about divorce, you know, with a woman, Liv Oman, his leading lady is someone who he did have a child with. Like, all of this is true. It's based on his own divorce. And the kids play no role, as you mentioned. And so I'm sure that growing up with that, Daniel Bergman's like, but what about? So, you know, this version has, as you mentioned, the kid is much more. in the picture.

But also, a guy love he introduced a lot of his own biographical elements into it. He said that he, you know, he had been through a divorce, I think five or six years ago, put a lot of his own experience into it, put a lot of his own grappling with his religion into Oscar Isaac's character, all this sort of stuff. So he made it very specific. But I think those stories that have so much specificity to them, and the two examples I always come up with when I think about this are like Lady Bird and Moonlight. Those are two very, very specific stories that are not my experience, but the emotion is so pure in those stories that I find

them universe. Well, people might disagree. My experience with those stories is that they feel more universal, even though they are very specific because there is just like a hard injection of truth into it. And I think that that is what comes out of this whole experience. For me, not having gone through a divorce, it just feels so very true. So I don't know. What do you think? How did you watch this show, Mal? How did I watch it? I watched it with my husband, which was an interesting experience. Against doctor's orders. Against doctor's orders. You know, I have to say, I had a little bit of dread going into it because I think it can be a surreal, almost out-of-body experience to watch some of these movies with your partner. Like, I think that for me, marriage story was a, like, recede as deep into the couch cushions and pull the blanket over your face viewing experience as possible.

And I assumed going in that this would be the same. And it actually, it wasn't. I don't know. I don't really know why. But we actually maintained a pretty active dialogue while we were watching it. It was sort of nice. And that makes us sound like very mature and evolved as a couple. Very evolved.

In the interest of full disclosure, that is not the case at all. And I'll say that Adam, my husband, has taken to just very dramatically saying, scenes from a marriage for the last four days when basically anything happens or I ask like for or about anything. Hey, can you make a pot of coffee? Seen's from marriage. It's relentless. It's very amusing.

That's incredible. I love that. He seems very committed to the bit, so I'm curious to see how long it lasts. But, you know, again, as I said earlier, like, I watched this, I think, because even though the kid is more present in this version than in the original, it's not, it didn't feel to me like it was about her experience in anyway. So I definitely watched it more as a married person than as a child of divorce. I'm interested to talk more about that point you made about, like, the universal experience and even Haga's comments about, like, the American quality of the stories in terms of what has remained constant and what changed from the original, which is, of course, Swedish. But before we get to that, how did, how did you watch it? And what did you bring to it?

Is God intended by myself? Fertively. Yeah. And I'm, I, my, my folks aren't divorced. Their relationship, at least while I still lived in the house, was pretty acrimonious, though, through most of our childhood. So we always thought they should be divorced. But, you know, that's a child's perspective. But, and not to like, obviously there's a, not to, to glamorize divorce, not that I was trying to do that.

But, you know, obviously, a childish parent stay together has, has probably a rosy review of what divorce might look like. someone who's actually gone through it and it's very traumatic or can be. But, you know, whenever I watch couples who just have gone beyond the point where they can reach each other, and it is such an interesting place to start in this version because, you know, you mentioned that you watch the Bergman after you watch these five episodes. I did a really weird thing where I watched it split. I watched the first half of the Bergman, then I watched these episodes, then I watched the last half. of the Bergman theatrical cut.

And I think that the opening is so interesting because in the Bergman, it's like a magazine, an article magazine interview about how perfect their marriage is, right? And then in this, it's a psychological study about the, you know, about long-term monogamy, et cetera, and financial disparity and all this sort of stuff. And I think from the beginning in this version, you have much more. of a sense of something's rotten here. You know, Jessica Chastain's, as she's playing the character, there's so much discomfort. The camera's constantly moving in a way that makes you feel agitated.

And in the Bergman, it's very still. And I feel like what Bergman is trying to set up, and the first one is like, is maybe to lull you into this full sense that this couple is in some way on terra firma, right? You don't see the cracks as early, I think, in Bergman's. or maybe I was just watching it from a place of ignorance, as you do in this version. But whenever you watch a couple who are not connecting in the way that Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain's characters

are not connecting, that she is holding back, that he is not being curious enough, all this sort of stuff, I'm always like, yeah, do it, divorce, yes, go, flee. So that's my own life experience and for me that where I'm just like, why stay when it's, It's like that was reached that point. And plenty of people have and figured it out. And it's been great for them.

But I don't know. I'm sort of a cut and run kind of person. It's interesting. You know, my parents split when I was very young, very young. And of course, in many respects, that was very hard, right? But I think because that was normal for me so early in my life and because my parents were both fortunate enough to remarry and find other people that they frankly seemed a lot happier with, you know, I think that while I recognize that divorces is or can be, you know, certainly very

painful and very traumatic, that it's important for people to be able to say that something isn't for them anymore, right? And, you know, I... Adam, my husband, his parents are also divorced. And so I think that that is weirdly one of the foundations of our marriage. You know, the idea that sometimes marriages don't last. And that, of course, again, like to maybe feign a level of like self-awareness and evolution that I don't think I actually possess. I think being able to, you know, assess that and talk it. through, like with candor and recognition is probably one of the only ways to kind of actively tend to it. But that was also one of the things I really loved about actually both versions of

the story is that the couples, Marianne and Johan and Mira and Jonathan, are quite adept, at least theoretically, in communicating. You know, in in 10. happening in to this self-recognition and this, this, uh, recognition more broadly of the paramounts of discussion and communication and saying when something is working and being able to identify what is going well or poorly in your life and talking about it with each other, talking about it with your friends over the dinner table, talking about it with a, with an academic, talking about it with an interview or whatever the case may be, right? But as is so often the case, and this gets back to the, the point you were making earlier

about what is universal in a story like this, typically the missing piece is being able to admit something to yourself in the first place, right? And that question of desire and like, what do you want? And when are you willing to admit that to yourself and then go find a way to fight for it? And if you wait too long or you don't know how to navigate that desire, then who are you hurting along the way? And, you know, one of the things that I found so interesting about the, the HBO version, and part of this is just because Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac have such,

like, overwhelmingly magnetic chemistry with each other. Sure. Very compelling to watch. Smoot on the arm on a red carpet. Yes, exactly. A viral on fire. Viral moment that certainly didn't oversell what we were going to see in the ultimate rendering on screen. There's this magnetism and this draw.

but it's inextricable from stated and, I think, clear revulsion. And that idea of like when the person who you love more than anybody else in the world also kind of repels you is, I think, just very true, very true to life. And there's something so, like, honest about spending a few hours assessing that. I think in terms of the structure, though, and the pace, I'm curious, I was curious to ask you about this. you know, as we mentioned, it's five episodes. They're all an hour. So, you know, it's about give or take a couple minutes on either end of an hour, right? They're all about an hour. So it's a five-hour miniseries. And it spans many years. There's this vignette quality, as the name

indicates, you're parachuting in and out of these moments and time. And sometimes you're catching up on what happened between and sometimes you aren't. How did that overall, all like pace and flow feel to you and how did it inhibit or fuel like your feeling of connection to where they were with each other and where they were in their relationship at a given moment in time? Yeah, I want to answer that. I want to zoom back really quickly to something you said and I think it'll inform how I answer this, which is that you mentioned the two characters in both versions being adept at communicating. And I would push back on that slightly and say, they're very smart and very, you know, they're able to express themselves. But in terms of

communication, I don't know how good they are until the end at listening to each other. And I think that's like the really key thing. They think they're good at communicating. Yeah, exactly. The illiterates is like this phrase that winds up in both of them and has to do with like emotional literacy and stuff like that. But they, you know, they can talk about how they're feeling. Jessica Chastain has, you know, the mirror character has this great, you know, as she's leaving, running monologue about how she's feeling and all the sort of stuff. It's fantastic. And then later when Jonathan, Oscar Isaac's character has been through some therapy and he's trying to share how he's feeling. But they're kind of monologuing at each other.

And it is only until the end that they're actually in dialogue with each other. And I will say for myself, I get really agitate. This happens on succession all the time between our friends. favorite dysfunctional couple, Shiv and Tom, where they will talk at each other, specifically Shiv will talk at Tom and not listen to each other. And it's very aggravating to watch two people talk at each other and not listen to each other. We're used to, like a key foundational aspect of great performances. People, you know, often say that the best actors are people who are like the best listeners, right? They're listening and responding. So it's agitating to watch people

not connect. So I will say the first few episodes above and beyond the acrimony are just agitating to watch for that reason. And again, I think the camera's moving a lot to give you that agitation. And so I was feeling like impatient somewhat to get through. I didn't want to savor this. This wasn't something I was savoring. I savored the last episode. If I'm the last episode really like a beautiful and grossing place to be. And that's all by design. But it does mean that like, I don't know, I think this could have been a four episode, maybe mini-series rather than a five. We talk about you and I have already talked about this a few times with shows. I often feel like there's an hour that could have gone, do you know? So I don't know. How did you feel about

pacing and length and all of that? So first of all, I completely agree with your point about communication. And that's, that is how I felt about it too. They think that they are adept at it. And in many realms of their own lives, they are. But when it comes to being honest with with themselves and each other about what they want. They don't know how to navigate that because they don't even know what they want. And so much of the journey is about trying to discover that. You have to understand it before you can say it out loud. And I'm really glad you mentioned that about talking kind of like at cross purposes or not being able to really listen in here. Because one of the sequences that I thought was so interesting, and it's in both versions,

is the reading of the pages, right? And it's like, oh, the most honest way that you can find to share something with each other is to totally isolate yourselves and in complete solitude, tap into your true feelings and then literally recite it after the fact. And again, that gets back to that more meta idea of like this play, right, being on stage with your feelings and your reflections. I could see losing an hour here or adding like six. Because I did, you know, And I'll say like ultimately after sitting with it for a couple days now, I've really actually enjoyed thinking about the story and reflecting on it. And it's gripping me a little more in retrospect than it did even in the moment. I found it a little, even though I understand the intention of the scenes of the vignette approach, you know, inherent to the premise, and found it quite effective in many respects. I did find myself like a missing those in between moments. you know, that's what I love so much about like boyhood or the before trilogy, for example. It's like you feel like you are there for every minute that counts, even when you aren't.

And so there were some sequences like kind of catching up on, in the modern version, the Shiva hookup. What an idea. Goodness. And I'm like, man, especially given where we ended in the prior episode and then where we're picking up, it's like, I would have actually really like to see that, you know, and to understand every minute in between. Yeah. And I think that's supposed to be the biggest time jump between the penultimate and the ultimate episode.

And I don't know that that's exactly clear, especially because we don't see their kiddo. You know what I mean? So, like, we don't have that much of a sense of passage of time. We just hear her asking if it's okay to watch a PG-13 movie. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, our best marker of time is, I think Jessica Chastain's hair, which is not, which is timeless, frankly.

So, um, it is. But, yeah, I was trying to track the passage of time and it was tough because she at, at some point, said something about four years. But I was trying to figure out exactly from what event, from deciding to split from another moment in time. So, yeah. And the original we know covers 10 years. This one was a little, there are markers. Okay, it's been two years since this. a year since this. It's been six months since this. It's been four years from this. Our kid is five.

Our kid is seven. Our kid is, you know, but it was, you had to actually think about it to kind of track where they were. Yeah. One of the biggest adaptive changes that we haven't talked about wildly that we haven't talked about yet is the fact that, like, Hagei Levy, in making this, uh, largely gender flipped the two roles. Um, and a reason that he gave for that, the main reason is that he was trying to straight adapt it or thinking about straight adapting it. And he's like, guess what, I don't like Johan, he's a cad, and guess what, I don't like Marian, she's, she's a dormant and, and, you know, all this sort of stuff like that. He's like, I couldn't bear to spend time with him. And all of a sudden I flip it, and it's the female character who leaves.

And it's, you know, the male character who's working through his emotional growth and his sexual hangups and all the stuff like that. And all of a sudden, these are both characters that I really, really care for. Jonathan, as I mentioned, he injected a lot of his own self into the Jonathan character, Higai Levy did. But he was talking about Mira as someone that he was just like really rooting for. He's like, she had to get out and I wanted her to get out and I wanted her to like, you know, grow in the way that she needed to grow.

Whereas like, Johan is just a bastard to abandon his family because he met someone new and young. And I think that's all true, like watching the Bergman at the time. I think, you know, you can contextualize it as this is 1973, and this feels shocking and modern anyway. It feels shocking and modern for Marianne and the original to be a very successful lawyer. It feels shocking for her to take sexual agency. It takes shocking for like all the sort of stuff, or at least it feels somewhat modern. But watching it now, it feels, if you do do it now, it feels stale as stale. Because we've seen so many versions of that story since. And I do think the gender flip, and you know, to go back to Kramer versus Kramer, this idea of like,

Like a woman leaving her child is still something that we as Americans at least have such a hard time with. But I think, you know, something that I thought was interesting in learning a little bit more about Kramer versus Kramer is that Merrill Streep thought that that character, Joanna, by the way, Joanna Kramer was a monster as written on the page and that she was insisted on injecting her with a lot more pathos and humanity, which I think she did very successfully. And I think did a lot to change our attitudes about, you know, what a mother can and can't do and can I can't feel around motherhood. And this character of Mira is, you know, not so overtly abandoning her child. She's making all these efforts, some efforts, at least to stay connected to her child. But it still does give it a lot more pepper. And I think that was a brilliant choice to flip it. There are some other choices that I don't, like,

I think it's interesting that he flipped the genders, but then he made Jonathan so financially dependent on Mira is so interesting because in the original they're both, you know, successful professionals. I don't know. Anyway, what are your thoughts on the gender flip? I liked it. You know, again, that was just how I came to it in the first place. So I sort of realized after the fact that that's what had transpired.

but yeah, I think it's ultimately more effective and broadly watching both back to back and seeing how many elements, whether it's specific lines of dialogue or story beats, are like note for note. And then what is different, right? Whether it's the American setting, gender flipping the roles, injecting Jonathan's Judaism into the story asthma too that actually I think

heightens this is a very different show but this thing that we talked about with we've been talking about in the ringerverse with what if and any sort of like multiversal story or alternate timeline story like what is different what is the same well those those two things are ultimately just as tell it, right? Because what is constant tells us just as much about human nature as what has evolved or what has changed given the context or the circumstance. I thought that one thing that

really struck me, though, I don't want to overstate this like or say this imprecisely because this isn't totally true. But in both versions, the characters sort of ultimately swap even within the story, right? So it's not quite that neat and tidy. Like they, they, they are both ultimately undergoing like a journey of self-discovery inside of their careers, inside of their relationships with themselves, with their children, et cetera. And in the original, hearing Marianne talk at the end about like her sexual awakening and Johan, who left his family and, and, you know, he left his family. and, you know, had this affair and went and lived his own life and, you know, has to be reminded about his own kid's birthdays, et cetera, et cetera.

And then he's like, I don't really, like, want to hear about your orgasms at the end. It's like, well, tough shit, you know? But hearing Jonathan in the original voice something similar, like, that he had discovered his own interest, frankly, and, like, in and joy for, sex. Like I found that, I just found it really interesting to see these like adult human beings work through their feelings about intimacy and sexuality. And like to circle back to that point we were discussing earlier about like communication, there's that really interesting sequence in the finale where they go back to their home. And you know, you have, you had a really smart

note in our outline about how that the house, this one setting. Like the house is a character. Jessica Chastain, something that she talked about, I believe it was on the panel that they did after the finale on Sunday, is that the main character, it's not either of them, it's the idea of marriage, right? And so, like, home, marriage, these are really the central figures. And there are a couple different

intimate sequences in the finale, and in the first one, they're like, this isn't, something's like off, you know, this isn't right. And this whole sequence of events is orchestrated to be back with each other, And they're, you know, Jonathan, who fought so hard to keep the marriage together in the first place and could not accept that it had ended, could not accept, could not accept ultimately that distinction between failure and ending, right? Like, okay, I don't want our marriage to fail, but maybe it hasn't failed. Maybe it's just over or it's over in the way that you want, that it began or that you wanted it to go. And then he comes to this moment of clarity, which is like, again, I think kind of upsetting, but also very honest, where he has another child with another woman. He is in a new relationship in a new phase of his life. And what is he doing? He's cheating, right? He's straying. And he's doing the thing that wounded him so gravely. And the way that he kind of reconciles that is to say that I don't need to be like morally superior anymore and I'm no better than anybody else. And I thought that was like so true.

and such a truthful recognition of human nature, but also like really crushing, really, really crushing as one of the takeaways of the story. Not in a bad way or a way I bring any judgment to. I thought, again, it was like quite honest. But this idea that the way that you find peace and comfort with yourself and other people is to, like, admit that you are sort of just as likely to let them down as they were to let you down?

That's a very long way of answering the gender swap thing. But I think that's just like they all kind of end up in the same place. I think what's interesting, though, is that after he says that, then he has the nightmare and he wakes up, this is one-to-one with the original, right? Where he has this nightmare and he wakes up with this conclusion of like, or this concern that he's never loved or been loved. And this works so much better in this version than it did in the original because I'm like, Johan, I don't believe anything you ever say when he's comforting Marianne, right? But for Mira to tell Jonathan, like, you love me and I love you, I think that's a really beautiful note for it to end on because it's just like there are different kinds of love. And just because something ends within a story doesn't mean the love that is in existence in that story ends. Just because Jonathan is doing this thing with Mira doesn't mean that on some level. Like, he still, he loves his kids. That's abundantly clear. and it doesn't mean that there isn't some kind of love that he has for his new partner. I don't know.

I don't mean to justify, you know, infidelity. But I do think it ends on this, like, a more hopeful stance. I agree with that, to be clear. Like, I think that there's, if we pan back and just say, what is the intention? Like, what is the purpose of the story? Not just what are the themes at the heart of it, but what point is? anybody making any version of this ultimately trying to reveal. I think that the answer to that probably varies person to person with whatever you're bringing to it, right?

Which is part of what makes it a compelling viewing experience. But the idea that there's not, like, there's not one version of love or family or one type of relationship. I thought that part of it was ultimately quite affirming in the end. I was less into them fucking in the private, don't go up here into the attic, kids' bedroom and then sitting naked on the stool. That's a tough one for Airbnb inside of this episode. I know.

You're texting me about Airbnb etiquette was spot on, spot on. But I do think that I think what's so interesting. And Hagia Levi has said that he feels like the conclusion, it's the same story, mostly. but he feels like his version is telling, making a completely different point than the original. And I think that's true because in the end, I'm like, I'm not thrilled with where things leave everyone in the Bergman version, but I'm thrilled with almost the exact same dialogue in this version. And I think that's interesting. And something that you and I, you know, we're freshly working together full time, but something we've always done in our separate.

readings of things is we always do the extra homework. We always, if we can, read the book or watch the other thing or whatever the case may be. That's because adaptation, I think, is so much more interesting than just watching something that doesn't have any source material because in watching an adaptation, you can really drill down on active choices that the creator has made. What they've decided to keep and what they decided to leave out tells you so much about the story. This is sort of kind of the point you were making about what if in a more meditextual way. And so I think watching, if I just watch this without watching the Bergman, not that you have to watch the Bergman to enjoy this, but I think if I just watched this, I wouldn't have appreciated

some of the emphasis on character journey or character connection that he was trying to improve. I mean, it sounds very egotistical. And he would never say, this to improve upon the Bergman. But let's just say modernize the Bergman or put the Bergman in a context that we, we as more modern viewers can relate to. So, yeah, so I mean, I really enjoyed my journey through the end of this marriage. Me too. What about what's next as a final note here?

You know, are you interested in a second season? You interested in a spinoff? I want more from Kate and Peter and their open marriage. That's what I'm interested in. Holly situation? Sure. Nicole Bihari is one of my favorite actresses. I love her. I would love to see a Bihari stole joint. The scenes from marriage verse. Yeah. So Guy Levy was asked about this in Indie Wire. I think Ben Travers asked him about it because there is a sequel to scenes from a marriage, the Bergman film. There is a sequel film to that, right? And so Levy said that,

that he thought about maybe like visiting other kinds of couples, gay couples, old couples, and having the same journey with them. Or eventually, you know, you mentioned the before trilogy, checking back in

with Jonathan Amira 30 years from now, something like that. I actually would love that. If we're all still here and want to do that, I would love to see where Jonathan and Mira go from here.

I am always wary of the HBO of miniseries that feels great and contained to me and maybe should stay in many series rather than a series. But if it's like an anthology approach, I'm less wary about that. What do you think, Mel?

Yeah, I'm with you. I think an anthology could be really interesting. I think I'm good for right now, but the idea of returning in the future to spend time with a different couple inside of a different relationship or many years in the future to return to see how

Mira and Jonathan are doing. I would like that to actually come in the future, though, and not to go back to the affair, not to do any of the NOAA is now 75 dancing on a cliff side, old age makeup. Yeah, probably don't need that here. But, you know, let's circle back in a couple decades and see how everyone's doing. Why not? Excellent. We will still be here in a couple decades on the Prestige TV podcast. Talking about the shows that we love. In the meantime, there will be a lot of programming for you. So follow along on. Spotify. So much succession talk from Joanna and others coming your way. Stay tuned to the feed.

Thank you to production assistant Jonathan Kerma for producing today's episode. Thank you to Joanna. Thank you, all of you for listening today.