A Good Marriage (Peter Askin, 2014, USA)

A Good Marriage is one of three feature films adapted from novellas in Stephen King's 2010 collection Full Dark, No Stars. It is the only one of the three that was penned by King himself. Those familiar with the world of Stephen King will recognize a general rule of King adaptations—the closer King is to the creation of the film, the less successful the end result. While this is not always the case, it is often the case. A Good Marriage unfortunately proves this role.

Inspired by the case of the BTK Killer, A Good Marriage tells the story of a woman who discovers her husband is a notorious, uncaught serial killer. While on paper, this story seems cinematic, the film finds some difficulty in its footing. This is no doubt in part due to King's script, which often finds it difficult to translate his story into something that feels weighty on screen. There seems to be a lack of focus on what the film tries to be. While Big Driver was successful precisely because it leaned into the trashier, Lifetime movie aspects of the story, A Good Marriage could benefit from leaning into these aspects. Instead, the result is kind of toothless.

There is an odd side story involving Stephen Lang as a detective following the wife that feels like it came out of a different movie (complete with Lang doing his best Maine accent). Joan Allen and Anthony Lapaglia do their best with the material, but there are a lot of dead moments in the film that make it a challenge to carry the film across the finish line. A Good Marriage is probably of interest only to people who read the novella, and even then, it will likely not be of much repeat interest to viewers.

5/10