Out of Order (2003)
Directed by: Wayne Powers
Premise: The life of married screenwriters Mark and Lorna Colm (Eric Stoltz and Felicity Huffman) hits the skids as the wife battles depression when repressed memories of her youth come to a head. This compounds problems in the marriage and professional difficulties.
What Works: The relationship between the couple is in bad shape but there is a leash put on it. Where a lot of these Hollywood drug addict stories go awry is that things slip too far, too fast and become predictable. This couple’s problems are bad, but they never quite slip out of control and that makes the conflicts more interesting.
What Doesn’t: Some of the unusual additions to the picture do not pay off as well as they should, such as Mark imagining that all of his son’s animals can talk.
DVD extras: Interviews, filmographies, featurette, commentary track.
Bottom Line: Out of Order is a drama, but one with a strong black comedy streak to it that usually works. It is also a revealing look into the problems that married people face without letting those problems go so far that they become cliché.
Episode: #12 (August 1, 2004)