USA/2022—directed by Frederick Wiseman | 63 minutes

Countess Sophia Behrs married Leo Tolstoy when she was 18 and he was 34. They were husband and wife for 48 years, had 13 children, and she outlived him by nine years. Yet their relationship, among the most discussed and written about in literary history, was anything but harmonious, as Sophia, an artist in her own right—a photographer, memoirist, and editor—was constantly forced to negotiate her happiness with her husband’s infidelities.

Legendary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman was inspired by Sophia’s story, and when a documentary he was scheduled to shoot was postponed due to Covid, he instead filmed this dramatic dream project based on Sophia’s letters from Leo to Sophia, structured as a series of lively monologues delivered with gathering intensity by actor and co-writer Nathalie Boutefeu, reinforced by graceful images of natural beauty inspired by the film’s bucolic French setting.

The 92-year-old Wiseman’s cinematic gamble paid off handsomely; this captivating one-woman performance offers a surprisingly contemporary rendering of a marriage. In French with English subtitles.

“Critic’s Pick! Devastating and essential. Sculpts the raw material of the diaries into an arc that works to peel back the emotional layers of the marriage. A Couple is Wiseman working to bottle a human soul.”  –Sophie Monks Kaufman, IndieWire