WHAT TO WATCH: A ‘Marriage’ Drama, ..."Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain bring star power to HBO’s adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage."Scenes from a MarriageSERIES PREMIERE HBO 9/8c
SUNDAY: Unfolding like a series of one-act plays, writer-director Hagai Levi’s (
In Treatment,
The Affair) five-part adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s seminal 1970s miniseries dissects the dissolution of a marriage in painful, psychologically acute detail. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain are at the soul-baring top of their game as Jonathan and Mira, who cling to each other even as they draw apart in confrontations that shift from tenderness and sorrow to sensuality, cruelty and even violent rage. It’s an acting tour-de-force in a drama that’s sometimes almost too difficult to watch.