Two for the Road (1967) review

The many downs and sporadic ups of the ten-year marriage between architect Mark (Albert Finney) and Joanna (Audrey Hepburn) - they have fidelity issues - are shown as they travel around the south of France in what feels like an existential nightmare.  I can't fault screenwriter Frederic Raphael for not trying something different and dicing up the 'traditional' bickering couple movie, but a screenplay shouldn't read like a chopped-up run-on sentence: real life boy-girl (or boy-boy, or girl-girl) disputes are not only exhausting to go through in real life, but on screen it's just a drag, and not even the worldly charm of Ms. Hepburn or the caged anger of Mr. Finney can elevate it.  If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought it was an advertisement for the automobile industry, and then there's that unwarranted "happy" ending that's supposed to make everyone leave the screening thinking it's gonna work out in the end.