we don't live here anymore (2004)

Premise: Jack (Mark Ruffalo) and Terry (Laura Dern) are best friends with Hank (Peter Krause) and Edith (Naomi Watts). Jack and Hank are professors at the local university, and Terry and Edith are house wives. Jack and Edith are having an affair, and Hank decides to seduce Terry.

The film is based on two short stories by Andre Dubus, the same guy who brought us the explosive In the Bedroom a few years back. Like In the Bedroom, the film is set in some quiet New England town. Without the washed out sea-tones of the previous work, it's quite obviously filmed in British Columbia.

That's hardly the point.

Ruffalo steals the show as an emotional heavyweight, presenting the kind of work that we haven't seen from him since You Can Count of Me. Watching the way Dern systematically picks him apart, it's no wonder why Jack runs for comfort in Edith's waiting arms. Listening to his voice thicken the louder he yells can take you by surprise, but it's when he says nothing that he's at his most powerful.

Without giving too much away, there's a scene where Ruffalo is crying, and Dern reaches out her hand. Ruffalo slow creeps out his fingers and takes it, and I can tell you that I just wanted to sob.

Dern's quite powerful herself. Right before Terry starts in on Jack (which she does a lot), there's a flicker in her eyes as her picks the crack she'll hit first. Terry emasculates Jack every chance she gets, seemingly without reason (in the stories she's a talented writer who gave it up to raise their kids, but that's never mentioned in the film), yet she manages to do it in such a way that you never hate her for it.

All the hoopla about Watts finally makes sense. Her Edith is as pained as the rest of them, but Watts fills her with a gnawing emptiness that the rest of the characters don't come close to. Edith has accepted Hank's chronic infidelity, but what really hurts her is the knowledge that her infidelity will have no effect on him.

Krause is pretty much just there. He makes Hank as lecherous as he needs to be but nothing more. Luckily he has a relatively minor part in the foursome, so we don't have to witness how hollow some of his delivery is.

John Curran (director) and Larry Gross (writer) work seamlessly together to put together a story that constantly contrasted two very different couples. Everything is up for grabs: teaching styles, housekeeping abilities, cooking, spending, drinking, even sex. They also make it very difficult to think that one life is better than the other.

I know which one I would rather live, but both are abysmal choices.