Let me qualify this review of Stephen King’s A Good Marriage by telling you that I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I think he is an important, uniquely American literary voice, and, as a writer, I can’t help but admire his prolific output. So I’m always eager to see any film he touches. All his stories aren’t perfect cinematic translations, but you can’t deny the genius of The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Shining, even Carrie, and so many others. I cannot wait to see the TV miniseries version of his time jumping Kennedy assassination thriller 11/22/63.

So it was with great anticipation that I popped my screener of Stephen King’s A Good Marriage into my DVD player. King himself wrote the screenplay from one of his short stories, found in the collection Full Dark No Stars. It premieres in theaters in major markets, as well as on VOD, on October 3. Also, it happens to star a couple of my favorite actors, Anthony LaPaglia and Joan Allen (whom we don’t see nearly enough of these days).

You need to go into this film knowing that it’s not a ‘who done it.’ There’s a major spoiler in the very first scene, which shows a pair of shifty eyes watching, perhaps stalking, what looks like an intended victim, and there’s no mistaking who those eyes belong to. Hey, the trailer spoils it all anyway. So when you see a middle-aged husband and wife cooing over each other, you know it’s only a matter of time before one finds out the horrible truth about the other.  This film is more about the dance between the mass murderer and the spouse–as the title implies. And it is indeed a sick and twisted definition of a good marriage. The problem is, I didn’t find  the couple’s interaction to be all that believable–or even interesting. Add the obligatory, crusty retired detective observing everything, and his presence is such a cliche it fails to stir things up.

Perhaps it’s important to note that this is the first feature film screenplay King has adapted from one of his works in more than 25 years, the last one being Pet Sematary in 1989. Could it be that he’s a bit rusty? In any case, this is a good vehicle for him to get back into the swing of things, if that’s what he wants to pursue. And if not, it’s a small film. His reputation, unlike the victims in many of his books, will survive it intact.

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One hour, 43 Minutes