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The ending of Millers In Marriage almost stages the film as a fantasy, in the sense that in the real world, people may not be able to walk out of certain situations, but in this film, they absolutely do. Ed Burns’ attempt at making a mid-life crisis movie is, in all honesty, a little bit drab even though it hits very close to home, despite me being a few years shy of middle age. It is quite funny because, if you ask the present generation of young people what they think middle age is, they might end up telling you 30, so does that make Millers In Marriage an “old-age” movie? I suppose it doesn’t really make sense to categorize it as such, but it is a movie about 3 very adult couples who are in the later stages of marriage after their kids have grown up and moved out. The film follows the lives of 3 Miller siblings: Andy the painter, Maggie the writer, and Eve the musician. A trio of artists born out of a difficult marriage. I guess the more you’ve experienced, the more creative you can be, eh? I feel like if I add any more in this introduction, it’d give you the whole picture, so for my sake, I’m going to leave the rest of this superficial film to the breakdown.
Spoiler Alert
Why Are The Millers Unhappy?
For one, they don’t really hang out with each other much. I’m only kidding. Andy’s the happiest sibling despite being the only divorcee of the lot. He’s found himself a new girlfriend, one who is close to his age and wants the same things as him, unlike his “not yet ex” wife Tina, who was significantly younger than him. Married for 15 years, Tina suddenly decided she didn’t want to be in a loveless marriage and asked for a separation. It also came from knowing her mom died at 45, which led her to live the motto “You only live once,” or, you know, some other insipid version of that thought, “If I die today, I want to die happy.” Fair enough, you know? But this leaves Andy alone, and he conveniently ends up hanging out with Tina’s ex-boss, Renee, out of the blue, and they end up together. Things have escalated so much that Andy’s afraid to tell Tina he’s seeing Renee and even asks her to hide in the bedroom when Tina essentially breaks into the house (I mean yes she’s got the keys, but you know what I mean). Now Tina wants to rekindle what’s lost, but she notices he’s seeing someone she introduced him to, someone completely different from her, making her angrier than she should be.
On the other hand, there’s Eve, a beautiful, subtle woman whose children have only recently grown up enough to leave, and now she feels lacking, or soulless. Her husband Scott is a drunkard musician who used to be the manager of her band and essentially made her quit to start a family (Honestly, I would love to play one of these prick characters that Patrick Wilson just nails). Scott’s been trying to stay sober, but as he hits the road, he’s gone back to drinking, and the cycle continues. An upset Eve finds solace in a man who is interviewing her for his book, a music critic who apparently dissed Scott’s bands. We also learn that the Millers’ dad was a drunk himself and left their mom deeply unhappy. This is probably why it affects Eve a little bit more than the average person.
Then there’s Maggie, the more pragmatic half of a novelist couple. Her silver-haired husband’s ego tells him he’s a perfectionist, which is why he’s been struggling to write, not because he’s run out of fuel. Plus, the guy got bad reviews for one of his books, leading him to spiral, which is why he can’t stand the thought of his wife possibly serving her magnum opus while also keeping her creativity alive. Nothing wrong with a bit of insecurity and a bit of competition at the far end of life, but for how long and how far can you drag that?
Why Does Renee Leave Andy?
Renee and Andy invite Maggie, her husband Nick, and a couple of other people to dinner at Renee’s cabin, which is a big step for them as a “couple.” This weekend is essentially a test for them. Do their friends/siblings like them together? How are they around other people, etc.? It’s a good weekend; it seems Maggie likes Renee a bit more than Tina, and Nick really enjoys her company, but that’s also because he’s struggling to keep himself straight-faced after one too many drinks. For Renee and Andy, it’s a pretty good time, but the next day, when Andy picks up Tina’s call, despite Renee telling him not to, things become a little bit more than trashy. The worst bit is that Andy agrees to meet Tina because he thinks there might still be a chance for them to end up together, though he’s been promising Renee that he harbors no such hopes. Andy never tells Renee he’s going to see Tina despite her being vulnerable to him and telling him that she has trust issues because of her ex-husband. But Tina does, and of course, she spices it up for Renee, who is, in this picture, the “other woman” somehow.
In the end, Renee leaves Andy because she doesn’t need to feel unimportant, alone, or insecure about a man like Andy who is confused about his feelings until the last moment. Maybe if Andy had just been honest, Renee may have forgiven him, but at the age that she is, in the space that she is, she doesn’t need to deal with these childish musings, so she leaves him. It took Renee a long time to find happiness in her independence, and then she liked Andy enough to put herself in a similar position again. Guess that leaves Andy an unhappy man in the end, though I have a feeling he might go back to Tina and the cycle may repeat itself. The reason Tina wanted to mess with Andy was because she didn’t want him to be with her ex-boss. In truth, she was simply sabotaging them because she didn’t want Renee happy, not because she wanted Andy back.
Does Nick Leave Maggie?
When you’re annoyed by nagging, dissatisfaction, and just a lot of negative energy, you end up looking for other avenues to have a good time. Maggie ends up cheating with a caretaker, and she writes about it in her book. Maggie does get Nick to read her book, where she speaks of infidelity and takes inspiration from their own life, which I suppose every writer does at some point. At the end of the day, we already know Nick’s insecure, but when he asks Maggie if she’s ever been unfaithful to him in 32 years of marriage, she has nothing to say to him, which is answer enough. The next day Maggie leaves the house to drop Eve off at the train station, and when she returns, she finds a letter with her name on it. It is more than obvious that Nick’s decided to leave her, but I don’t think it’s simply because she cheated on him, because at that age, I guess one could work things out, seeing as they’ve been together so long; it also has to be about how this is her best book yet and he doesn’t even have an idea for what to write next, no?
Does Eve End Up Cheating?
Are we meant to wonder if adultery is hereditary? Because, why do two of the Miller sisters want to cheat? I mean, the answer to that is clear. They’ve both got two very different reasons to do so. Maggie wasn’t necessarily unhappy; she just felt suffocated by Nick’s nagging, to put it simply. On the other hand, Eve is neglected; she has regrets because her band would’ve really taken off had it not been for Scott telling her to leave and start a family. He then became an alcoholic, which is never pleasant, to say the least. So, when Johnny, the music critic, gives Eve attention, telling her that she’s beautiful, that she had a wonderful career and deserves to get back to it, now that the stakes aren’t as high, of course she’ll feel some sort of excitement about whatever it is that’s going on.
So Eve decides to go off to the countryside for a secret rendezvous with Johnny, knowing Scott hates him, but she starts to feel guilty. It’s not that she doesn’t like this guy; it’s just that she seems to be the kind of person who always does the morally right thing. It’s too much guilt for her to handle, but more importantly, through this whole thing, and after she decides to spend the night at Maggie’s, telling Johnny she can’t give him what he wants, she realizes one important thing.
In Millers In Marriage’s ending, Eve decides to go back to her musical career because her (almost) affair with Johnny gives her the inspiration to start over. She almost cheated on Scott, but she also found her voice again. Eve leaves the house with her guitar and big dreams, just as she probably came to New York with not much else. Now she has the love of her kids and maybe a little bit of love from her old fans too. You can’t be sure Eve will end up successful (most likely she won’t, because we know what the industry is like to older women), but at least she’ll get to experience what she missed out on again. So, at the end of the day, I’d say the Millers will be alright, and maybe since they’ve got each other, the loneliness won’t hit as hard.
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