R | 1h 57m | Drama | 2025
Writer-director-actor Edward Burns’ first film, “The Brothers McMullen,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995 and won the Grand Jury Prize. A romantic comedy about discovering “the one” to spend your life with, it put actress Connie Britton on the map, not to mention Burns himself.
At the time, Burns—a refreshingly non-Hollywood, old-school jeans-and-t-shirt dude’s-dude, with great hair and an incongruously squeaky, high tenor voice—was the only artist in a big family of proud Irish-American cops. Due to the merciless mocking a film-making career choice naturally elicits from such manly man, blue-collar backgrounds, Burns had the requisite, quick-on-his-feet, tough-guy, sarcastic humor to give as good as he got.
Now, married to model Christy Turlington, Burns moves ahead 30 years to a tale of mid-life crisis. “Millers in Marriage” is a story of three siblings, all of whom find themselves in frayed and coming-apart-at-the-seams marriages. They’re collectively contemplating marital second acts, infidelity, and divorce. “Millers” therefore automatically comes full circle to Burns’ “McMullen” debut.
Featuring an exceptional cast, the blue-collar background of “McMullen” gives way to the success, affluent lifestyles, packed schedules, and dinner parties of “Millers.” It features enough wine for three such similarly themed movies.
Three Siblings
Miller-sister Eve (Gretchen Mol), a former singer-songwriter, had a taste of fame in the 1990s. After one album—and pregnant with her music manager Scott’s (Patrick Wilson) baby—she jettisoned her art to start a family. With her boys now grown, and Scott always on the road managing bands, she’s got time to think about what she really wants. Unfortunately, her husband Scott has turned into a mean drunk.
What could possibly go wrong? “Heeeeeere’s Johnny!” That would be the suave-but-warm and exceptionally complimentary music journalist Johnny (Benjamin Bratt), who had a massive crush on Eve back in the day.
He’s writing a book on the 1990s rock scene and would like to interview Eve, over several bottles of white wine. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. “Millers in Marriage” is about the insidious call of the easy wrong over the hard right.
Meanwhile, Eve’s sister Maggie (Julianna Margulies), a successful writer, just finished her latest book and intends to bring home some red wine to celebrate. Her even more successful writer-husband Nick (Campbell Scott) is up against massive writer’s block, having lost contact with his muse after his latest book was critically hammered.
Nick—an even more annoying jerk than Scott—is massively condescending. He considers his work true art, and Maggie’s easy-come-easy-go blather. These two men are so easy to dislike you can’t really blame their wives for feeling a bit restless.
Finally, Andy (Burns), the third Miller sibling, is a painter. He’s in a brand new relationship with fashion executive Renee (Minnie Driver). However, Andy’s not quite divorced wife, Tina (Morena Baccarin), is suddenly feeling frisky, after initially dumping him. Renee happens to be Tina’s former work colleague.
The Moral of the Story
Basically, if you don’t give your wife some nice compliments on a regular basis, some other man will be happy to do it for you. And vice versa.Steven Spielberg famously said there are two types of childhood filmmakers: The ones who rigged their toy train sets to explode and filmed that and those who followed their friends around with movie cameras and filmed conversations. Ed Burns is the latter, and his trademark point-and-shoot style is reminiscent of Woody Allen.
Burns’ main themes, as evidenced by “The Brothers McMullen,” “She’s the One,” and “The Groomsmen,” tend to be fear of commitment, infidelity, and sibling relationships. “Millers in Marriage” is basically Burns revisiting the well and doing a Greatest-Hits compilation, except with 30 years of experience now under his belt. He’s achieved success, has much more experience directing actors, and now has the A-list Hollywood cast that accompanies those achievements. It’s Burns’ usual cinematic preoccupations viewed through a more polished and professional adult lens.
Burns’ aging would appear to have lent a certain realistic-but-depressing pragmatism to his screenplay characters’ choices, that definitely wouldn’t have cropped up back when he was a young, starry-eyed romantic living with his girlfriend out of his car.
Though he’s no longer in the mainstream—especially the current mediocre Hollywood offerings—Ed Burns continues telling human relationship stories through sheer willpower, a good work ethic, and talent.
