Movie - A Good Marriage (2014)

 

My views

Plot

Bob and Darcy Anderson have been happily married for 27 years with two adult children. One evening while Bob is away on a business trip, Darcy goes into the garage to search for batteries. When rummaging through Bob's things, she comes across pornographic magazines containing sadomasochistic images. Upon looking further, she finds a secret compartment behind the garage's baseboard and inside is a small box containing ID cards of Marjorie Duvall, a victim of a serial killer known as "Beadie".

Horrified, Darcy looks up Beadie online and cross-checks Bob's business records with the locations of the murders, finding that he was close to most of the crimes. She also sees a photograph of Duvall wearing earrings identical to the ones Bob recently gave her as an anniversary gift. Meanwhile, after spotting a young woman leaving a diner, Bob follows her in his car. He then returns home to confront Darcy; he has deduced her discovery. He calmly explains his insanity to Darcy, recounting how he and a sadistic friend named Brian Delahanty, or "BD" (from which "Beadie" was derived), planned a school shooting as teenagers. However, Delahanty was hit by a car before they could carry it out, but Bob claims BD had "infected" him with "certain ideas", resulting in his homicidal urges.

Bob claims that, after he started a family with Darcy, his murderous alter ego receded and he was not driven to kill again for several years. He asks Darcy to put the matter behind them for the sake of their children, and then falls asleep. The following morning, Darcy feigns an agreement to forget what she has discovered, on the condition that he does not kill again, and that he bury Duvall's ID cards in the woods. Bob agrees.

A few months later, Bob, who is an avid coin collector, finds a rare 1955 doubled die cent, and he and Darcy go out to celebrate. Upon arriving home, Darcy has Bob fetch some Perrier while she waits for him upstairs, ostensibly for sex. However, when Bob goes up, Darcy pushes him back down the stairs, breaking his back and arm. She then manages to shove a plastic bag and a dish cloth down his throat, killing him. After removing all evidence of murder, Darcy manages to convince the police and the children that Bob died in a drunken accident. Darcy assumes the ordeal is over.

Not long after Bob is buried, a retired ailing detective named Holt Ramsey visits the house. Ramsey has spent years investigating the Beadie murders and had questioned Bob previously. Ramsey tells Darcy that he suspected Bob was the killer, since his Chevrolet Blazer was seen in the vicinity of each victim. Darcy realizes that Ramsey has figured out her role in Bob's death, but she rejects any accusations and Ramsey leaves. Later that night when Ramsey is admitted to the hospital, Darcy visits him and threatens to smother him with a pillow, claiming "two can keep a secret if one of them is dead". Once she admits the truth, Ramsey assures her that she did the right thing.

Darcy returns home and enjoys life on her own, after realizing that Bob was close to being caught and therefore wasn't as smart as he thought he was. She finds that she can now be at peace with herself.