The Wife and Her House Husband
Written and directed by Marcus Markou
Starring Laura Bayston and Laurence Spellman
Screening nationally as part of the British Film Festival

The Wife and Her House Husband was shot during COVID shutdown in London, so there is physical distance between characters and no crowd scenes. This perfectly suits the sparseness of the plot and the film’s unremitting focus, which is the marital breakdown of a couple struggling with guilt and grief.

It is the work of independent filmmaker Marcus Markou whose first feature, in 2012 was Papadopoulos and Sons, which had a markedly different tone. This film begins with a scene of intense male rage from Matthew (Laurence Spellman) towards Cassie (Laura Bayston) in the process of a divorce negotiation after twenty years together.

Spellman’s powerful and alarming performance in this opening scene generates assumptions about patriarchal power relations that are slowly subverted as the film progresses.

It transpires that the couple have an amicable agreement for dividing their property and arranging child custody, so what has caused Matthew’s rage and Cassie’s evident sense of guilt?

The questions are gradually answered for the audience through a simple plot device.

There exists a letter that they both wrote and sealed at the beginning of their romance setting out tasks they would perform if they should ever terminate their relationship. Cassie requests that they follow the instructions.

As they hesitantly go through these simple steps, the audience picks up hints from their conversations. From shards of references, the film reveals aspects of their life together, beginning with their sexuality, traversing the power relationship of a stay-at-home father versus a high-performance female executive and eventually getting to the nub of their conflict.

The writer/director leads viewers step-by-step through the back story behind each aspect of this couple’s history. The slow peeling back of years and layers reveals a deeply human story of suffering and redemption.

Many of the clues revealed, while not deceptive, mislead the viewer, the pieces only come together haltingly. Along the way we see the gender power relations between them switch back and forth as their marital complexity surfaces and their human frailties and qualities become more apparent.

Adults who have had to navigate any aspect of this couple’s narrative will be drawn into this film and have much to discuss afterwards. This is a particular window into modern capitalism and the choices people make within its limits.

Laura Bayston and Laurence Spellman are not big-name actors, but they deserve to be. There is not a wasted moment with them on screen. And as for Marcus Markou, the finest traditions of social realist British cinema are in safe hands with him.

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IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14883164/

Trailer: