My Favorite Wife

Seen for the first time in December 2012.

"My Favorite Wife" is a high stress movie. It traffics in the kind of comedy that makes you nervous. Like when you watch a rerun of "Three's Company" and Jack Tripper somehow has two dates at the same time and he keeps running back and forth between the two of them, and then all of a sudden Mr. Furley shows up and on top of it all he's got to keep him from finding out that he's not a homosexual, and you know that it's all just going to end up in disaster i.e.with Jack getting slapped in the face twice. I cringe more than I laugh.

This is not to say that it's bad, but if you're looking to watch Cary Grant be Cary Grant, well, Irene Dunn is the star of this vehicle. And she's a capable star, and this is a capable movie, though very oddly paced. The ending especially is drawn out and ends with a weird little whimper.

I think my favorite thing is that there are at least three scenes where someone is incredibly awkwardly caught in a big lie. There's no big payoffs in these scenes. There aren't a lot of laughs in this movie. Just a lot of stress and a lot of cringing. They stretch a thin premise as far as it will go, and then they juice it up with a male rival for Cary Grant. They barely milk that, and then they end it once the two leads decide to stop being passive aggressive with each other.

This is not, at the end of the day, one of Cary Grant's ten best performances. Nor is it one of his ten best movies. But for all of its flaws, it has a modern sensibility, trafficking in awkwardness and discomfort. It just botches all of its major scenes or what should be major scenes but end up underwhelming moments, such as Irene Dunn's big motherly reveal to her kids or Grant and Dunn's ultimate reconciliation. It's obviously the less heralded Grant and Dunn screwball for a reason. Grade B.