Marie and Bruce disappeared, for all intents and purposes, after it screened at Sundance five years ago in 2004. The Weinstein Company has recently released it on DVD without extras. Sometimes the movie is the extra, and here we have an interesting if not infinitely re-watchable performance of a Wallace Shawn work written for the stage.

The Movie

Saying a movie feels like a stage play put to screen is ordinarily a pejorative, but here it's to the actors' credit. Both Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick have extensive experience on stage and in front of the camera, and those chops translate quite well to a work that doesn't fully live in either realm. It's a phenomenological back and forth from Marie and Bruce's perspectives as they contemplate divorce. Marie on the delivering end, and Bruce receiving.

Even though the play and movie are titled Marie & Bruce, most of the running time is about their time as they spend it apart from one another. In most relationships, I find, people really are more defined by their time apart than their time together. The bits that I enjoyed the most were those that you couldn't reproduce easily on the stage.

Video & Audio

Standard def video and 5.1 audio that's up to the task. Nothing spectacular.

Extras

None.

Final Thoughts

It makes for a movie that's a little difficult to get in to if you've been through a divorce or been married and fought. Not exactly the type of movie you run out to buy or rent, but worth watching for fans of both lead actors and the writing of Wallace Shawn.