In emotionally straitjacketed 1949, Harry (Chris Cooper) can't accept that all his wife, Pat (Patricia Clarkson), wants is sex. Harry wants affection and tenderness, which he finds with Kay (Rachel McAdams), a comely war widow. He tells his best friend, the perpetual bachelor Richard (Pierce Brosnan) - and all it takes is one look for Richard to fall in love with Kay, too. Harry thinks it would be cruel to ask Pat for a divorce, so to spare his wife any suffering, he begins plotting to kill her.

Yes, the story - adapted from a pulp novel, John Bingham's Five Roundabouts to Heaven, by director Ira Sachs (who made the 2005 Sundance jury winner "40 Shades of Blue") and Oren Moverman (who co-wrote "I'm Not There") - is a bit outlandish, and heavy on the sort of melodrama that Sirk used to peddle in films like "Imitation of Life." But Sachs steeps the film in the period details, like three-martini lunches and telephone operators, that bring out the understated passions of all four characters.

What sells "Married Life" are the performances, all of them stellar. That's not news to anyone who knows Cooper and Clarkson, who bring fascinating shades of emotion to their characters' loveless marriage. McAdams, in her first movie in two years, is both sympathetic and smoldering - a woman you would believe could provoke men to betrayal or murder.

The key, though, is Brosnan, portraying the world-weary cad he perfected in "The Matador" and "The Tailor of Panama." Here, as the film's narrator, he provides an odd but appropriate balance of laid-back irony and old-fashioned sentimentality that makes "Married Life" as interesting as married life itself.

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Married Life

* WHERE: Broadway Centre Cinemas, Megaplex 17 at Jordan Commons.

* WHEN: Opens today.

* RATING: PG-13 for some thematic elements and a scene of sexuality.

* RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes.

* BOTTOM LINE: Four sterling actors bring out the underlying passion of this '40s-style melodrama.