Variety
Marie and Bruce
January 26, 2004
By: Harvey, Dennis

A Holedigger Films presentation in association with Little Bird Development. Produced by George Van Buskirk. Executive producers, David Newman, Jerome Swartz, Joseph Caruso III, Julianne Moore, Jonathan Cavendish, Amy Robinson. Co-producers, Kelly Miller, Kimberly Reiss.

Directed by Tom Cairns. Screenplay, Wallace Shawn, Cairns, from the play by Shawn. Camera (color, Sony HD Cam-to-35mm), Patrick Cady; editor, Andy Kier; music, Mark De Gli Antoni; music supervisor, Linda Cohen; production designer, Susan Block; art director, Lucio Seixas; set decorator, Carrie Stewart; costume designer, Carol Oditz; sound editor (Dolby Digital), Mariusz Grzaslewicz; digital animation, Rogue Creative; f/x designer, Fran Roberts; assistant director, Jamin O'Brien; casting, Juliet Taylor, Patricia Kerrigan. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (Premieres), Jan. 19, 2004. Running time: 90 MIN.

Marie: Julianne Moore

Bruce: Matthew Broderick

With: Bob Balaban, Tom Riis Farrell, David Wiater, Julie Hagerty, Kenneth Lonergan, Nancy Tgiles, Edgar Oliver, Andy Borowitz, Christopher Evan Welch, David Aaron Baker, Emily McDonnell, Steve Burns, Deborah Eisenberg, Brian Backer, Robert Lehrer, Blossom Dearie, Ana Reeder, Murray Hill, Griffin Dunne, Marshall Efron, Robert Appleton, Sharon Puterman.

Playwright Wallace Shawn gets as good a transfer as one might reasonably expect from "Marie and Bruce," HD-shot version of his 1979 seriocomedy. Nimbly opened up for the screen by legit/BBC vet Tom Cairns--albeit without quite losing its theatricality--this tangy, non-naturalistic look at a Manhattan couple's deteriorated relationship boasts eminently watchable lead turns from Matthew Broderick and Julianne Moore. But story's oddness and ambiguity demand too rarefied a taste to attract more than modest arthouse attention. Production might look more at home on the tube, though even there it will be too peculiar to keep average viewers glued. The screen is still black when Marie (Moore) begins venting: "Can I tell you something? I find my husband so god-damn irritating that I'm planning to leave him"--one of the least profane comments her frequent voiceover narration offers on that subject. She loathes Bruce (Broderick) even as he lies asleep beside her. They've been together for some time, but current status--both are jobless (though their apartment is comfortable enough), cash-poor, roasting in the summer heat--makes continuing seem unbearable. At least to Marie.

Over breakfast their communication is a minefield, with his every dull, polite step triggering her shrill, accusatory sarcasm. It's a mercy when he leaves for the day; they'll meet up again that night at a friend's party that neither one particularly wants to attend. Marie vows she'll tell him she's leaving then, as soon as they have a moment alone.

His first stop is lunch with old friend Roger (Bob Balaban, who played Bruce in the 1980 NYC debut production), a nattering well-spring of boring anecdotes--though the two men seem to delight in each other's company.

Meanwhile, restless Marie has decided to leave very early for the party, walking an "indirect route" that leads her to neighborhoods never before trod. A friendly golden retriever starts following her; smitten, their roles soon are reversed. Pooch draws her to a nondescript doorway opening onto a splendid, surreal meadow. Falling asleep, she experiences first of several wryly baffling dreams (visualized in nifty CGI)--or is the meadow itself a dream? Waking later in a conventional urban park, she hurries on to the party.

There, the irksome chatter of a hundred typical party conversations suffocates her. Their dynamic now somewhat reversed, late-arriving Bruce sheds his milquetoast nature, diving into the social swim. Marie at last pries him away for a horribly awkward restaurant dinner at which she springs her news in the most personally wounding language possible. Pie ends with passed-out hubby put to bed and spouse curiously becalmed--though it's anyone's guess whether they'll last another day together.

Like a "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wooli?" shrunk to the acerbic miniature era New Yorker cartoon, "Marie and Bruce" is terse, absurd, biting. Psychological realism is just occasionally in focus, and the stylistic chasm between leads--Broderick at his most hilariously lumpen, Moore all high-strung glamour--further undermines a conventional reading.

It's hard to believe these two characters are, or ever were, a couple. Yet their interactions and individual mannerisms are fascinating to watch. Broderick, in particular, wrings peerless variations on terrain already familiar from "Election." etc. Bruce's bland cluelessness (or is it willful passive-aggression?) renders his blunt sexual musing after several cocktails all the more hysterical.

Co-adaptor Cairns uses well-integrated visual tricks and amusing musical choices to heighten a lightly surreal atmosphere that impresses even as it keeps the viewer at an emotional distance--and ultimately succeeds in adapting arguably the least cinematically adaptable of important contemporary playwrights.

Numerous teasingly glimpsed support characters are well turned by thesps including Julie Hagerty, Griffin Dunne, playwright Kenneth Lonergan and cabaret legend Blossom Dearie.

Sharp package's subtly off kilter aspects are cinched by clever contributions from Patrick Cady's lensing and Susan Block's production design.

Source: http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc3.asp?DOCID=1G1:112906058&num=2&ctrlInfo=Round2a%3AProd%3ASR%3AResult

Hollywood Reporter
Marie and Bruce
January 21, 2004
By Kirk Honeycutt

PARK CITY -- In "Marie and Bruce," a film version of Wallace Shawn's 1979 stage comedy about a bickering New York couple, tone is everything. Deadpan deliveries of cruel verbal abuse coupled with mock-serious staging by director Tom Cairns give the film a touch of the absurd. Its extreme theatricality will divide audiences, but probably not 50-50. This near-hallucinogenic journey through a single day ill the lives of a forlorn married couple will alienate many, yet the perverse wit in Shawn's dialogue (Cairns shares in the adaptation credit) and droll portrayal of middle class languor will tickle a select few.

While not quite as absurdist as, say, a Eugene Ionesco play, "Marie and Bruce" is not afraid to load the dialogue of its stars, Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick, with unnatural, full-sentence verbiage that sounds at times like something a foreigner learning English might construct. The manner of their discourse is often abstract as if they are at an emotional removal from the heat and chill of their words.

The urban couple at the center of the story is seemingly at a crossroads in their lives--but then again, maybe not. Addressing the audience, Marie (Moore) informs us as the alarm clock hits 7 a.m. that she intends to [cave Bruce (Broderick) this day. As she berates him over breakfast, he is curiously passive, hardly registering her hurtful words. He remains adoring as she grows more venomous.

They part company, and we follow each one's separate paths over the day. Her aggressiveness diminishes as she wanders aimlessly through city streets. In a touch of Harry Potter, she follows a large dog through an alley that transports her into a lush meadow surrounded by trees, where she sleeps peacefully.

Meanwhile, Bruce has lunch with his pal Roger (Bob Balaban), who chatters away on completely inane topics that nevertheless appear to fascinate Bruce. Later Bruce halfheartedly tries to pick tip a young woman but settles for a dingy hotel room by himself for a go at autoeroticism.

The couple meets up that evening at a cocktail party given by a then& Here, Bruce comes out of his shell to drink voluminously and flirt with others, while Marie settles into a mind-weary stupor. Will they break tip? Will anyone care, including Bruce and Marie?

One gets the impression that Shawn isn't even sure of what he wants to say. The script falls short of satire but is equally unwilling to leap fully into the absurd. At times, the dialogue seems to stem from the characters' subconscious and other times from the mischievous writer, commenting on his own characters.

Under Cairns' precise direction, the actors perform because fully, which in this case means that we watch them act. Every gesture, every sentence is a performance. Cinematography, art and costume design point the film in different directions: The streets and interiors are all too real, but the lives lived within them are patently artificial, including fantasy sequences that mock the characters' dreary lives. At the end, one can almost tied the curtain coming down.

screened: Sundance Film Festival
the bottom line: A highly stylized comedy that is nearly impossible to warm up to.

MARIE AND BRUCE
Holedigger Films
in association with Little Bird Development
Credits:
Director: Tom Cairns;
Screenwriters: Wallace Shawn, Tom Cairns;
Based on the play by: Wallace Shawn;
Producer: George VanBuskirk;
Executive producers: David Newman, Jerome Swartz, Joseph Caruso III, Julianne Moore, Jonathan Cavendish, Amy Robinson;
Director of photography: Patrick Cady;
Production designer: Susan Block;
Music: Mark De Gli Antoni;
Costume designer: Carol Oditz;
Editor: Andy Keir.
Cast:
Marie: Julianne Moore;
Bruce: Matthew Broderick;
Roger: Bob Balaban; Guy:
Brian McConnachie; Frank:
Tom Riis Farrell.
Running 87 times.
No MPAA rating

EfilmCritic.com
by: Erik Childress

Movie Crazed

Source: http://www.moviecrazed.com/guymovies/sundance2004.html