Butler's Cinema Scene

Tracy Letts, Debra Winger

“THE LOVERS” My rating: B 

94 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Spectacularly acted and deliciously dark, “The Lovers” is a breathtaking balancing act between comedy and drama.

Azazel Jacobs’ cinematic faceslap centers on the fiftysomething Michael and Mary (Tracy Letts, Debra Winger), a suburban  couple who  have been married for so long that they’ve given up searching for that old spark.

They’re more like roommates than spouses. Most of their conversations center on the mundane; they can coast a long way on “We’re out of toothpaste.”

But each is having a secret extramarital affair.

Michael is doodling with Lucy (Melora Walters), a  ballet instructor at least a decade his junior whose neediness is off the charts.

Mary is getting it on with Robert (Aidan Gillen, Littlefinger on “Game of Thrones”), a writer who’s given to lurking outside her place of work.

Both Lucy and Robert are absurdly vulnerable and emotionally naked.  They’re more like a couple of lovesick teens than adults, and Michael and Mary are exhausting themselves trying to please their lovers without giving away  the game at home.

It may be time to fish or cut bait.  Lucy and Robert are tired of the lies and excuses and each lays down the law:  End the marriage.  Now

Independently, Michael and Mary both promise that they’ll bring down the curtain  during an upcoming reunion with their college-age son.

Debra Winger, Aiden Gillen

And then, in an unexpected twist, the couple suddenly, magically find the spark they lost so long ago.  Finally, their marriage bed is once again  the arena of fierce lovemaking. (Special props to Mandy Hoffman’s musical score, which accompanies these epic  bouts with a rising orchestral score that stops just short of breaking into “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.”)

By sharing sex are Michael and Mary cheating on their respective lovers?

On paper, anyway, Jacobs’ screenplay looks like a wacky comedy.  But her direction — and the terrific performances — imbue the material with depth and a bittersweet ache only occasionally eased by moments of droll comedy.

One drawback: Tobias Datum’s cinematography is so unrelentingly dark — even a sunny afternoon feels trapped in a perennial twilight — that it starts to grate. Yes, the film’s look reflects its moral murkiness, but at a certain point it stops making a statement and starts being an affectation.

| Robert W. Butler