Summary
A gilded society of affianced swells scatters itself across the pine-dark Adirondacks, where lantern-lit verandas and champagne flutes echo with the brittle laughter of the almost-married. Phyllis Ashbrook—equal parts porcelain poise and unspoken appetite—has convened this pre-nuptial carnival to flaunt her match with Roger Mason, a man whose jawline promises more than his ardor delivers. When a sudden squall slashes the cliffs, Phyllis and John Manning, Roger’s best man and Anita Webb’s betrothed, are funneled into a splinter-ridden cabin whose walls sweat with the scent of cedar and suppressed possibility. Rumor gallops faster than the storm; reputations, those fragile currencies of 1916, teeter on the lip of scandal. In a maneuver both patriarchal and pragmatic, Phyllis’s parents strong-arm the stranded duo into a hasty marriage—paperwork as shield, divorce promised once China, distance, and decency intercede. John ships out, accidentally clutching his new wife’s monogrammed valise; the suitcase becomes a MacGuffin of misrecognition, boomeranging him back to a Manhattan apartment now haunted by the woman he barely knows yet cannot escape. Enter Roger and Anita, who arrive breathless with confessed desire for one another, their candor a solvent that dissolves every engagement contract in the room. Left alone amid the emotional rubble, John and Phyllis discover that the make-believe has quietly calcified into reciprocal longing; the planned divorce evaporates like morning mist over the lake where the first lie began.
Synopsis
Phyllis Ashbrook hosts a party in the Adirondacks for her fiancé Roger Mason and their engaged friends, John Manning and Anita Webb. In a climbing expedition, Phyllis and John are separated from the others by a storm and seek refuge in a cabin. To save her reputation, Phyllis' parents insist that she marry John immediately, after which they may obtain a divorce and marry their respective partners. After the ceremony, John leaves for China to provide grounds for divorce, but upon discovering that he has mistakenly taken his new wife's suitcase, he returns to his apartment, where he finds Phyllis. Anita and Roger arrive and confess their devotion to each other, and when John and Phyllis realize that they, too, are in love, the divorce plans are abandoned.
Review Excerpt
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Storm-ruffled pines, kerosene glow, and the last gasp of Gilded-Age decorum—The Make-Believe Wife stages its marital farce against a tableau so tactile you can almost smell the wet bark. Director Adrian Gil-Spear wields the camera like a society sketch artist: every wide shot of the Adirondack cliffs feels lifted from a Chase bank calendar, yet the close-ups betray the tremor in a gloved hand or the flicker of a pupil that knows the engagement ring is a shackle.
The film’s engine is reputatio..."
