The Hard Work In ‘Before Midnight,' Amour' And Other Films And Shows

Why Onscreen Marriages Are Hard Work
THE OFFICE -- 'Work Bus' Episode 904 -- Pictured: (l-r) John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, Jenna Fischer as Pam Halpert -- (Photo by: Chris Haston/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
THE OFFICE -- 'Work Bus' Episode 904 -- Pictured: (l-r) John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, Jenna Fischer as Pam Halpert -- (Photo by: Chris Haston/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Ben Affleck caught some flak earlier this year when, in the course of his Oscar-night thank-yous, in front of a billion of his closest friends, he referred to his marriage to Jennifer Garner as “work.” Matrimony, at least among the famous, is not supposed to be that way. It is either a magical storybook dream, breathlessly chronicled in supermarket magazines, or else, in those same pages a few years later, a train wreck of betrayal and heartbreak. Hollywood marriage, like so much else in modern celebrity culture, is both aspirational and cautionary.

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE