"Married Life" (****)

Trading in the militant, iron-fist façade that masked a bit of his own perversion in "American Beauty," Chris Cooper dons a seal of civility and Eishenhower-era righteousness that covers a homicidal streak and treacherous, quiet desperation in "Married Life." Behind the Harry Potter frames and Harvard manners are the glazed eyes of a man on the brink - to say of what might ruin some of the fun, but anyone familiar with the lesser-known works of Alfred Hitchcock should get a quiet, nostalgic thrill out of the throwback style of suspense and deliberate twist.

Set against post-WWII America, Cooper, a budding master at projecting covert motives ("Breach" "Syriana") and one of America's most underrated actors, plays Harry Allen, a man for whom the terms 'marriage counselor' and 'divorce' seem somehow less than sufficient. Behind the eager-to-please schoolboy advances toward his girlfriend, or the forced good-husband act around his wife, there is an incessantly creepy drive for his own selfish happiness. At the same time is the fact that Allen is scarier while buttering his wife's toast than digging a dog's grave, and that's where writer-director Ira Sachs' message lies - as the clunky tagline asks: "Do you know what really goes on in the mind of the person with whom you sleep?"

So, as if Hitchcock himself were exploring the overlapping infidelity themes of 2004's "Closer," Sachs sets out at exposing the double-dealer in us all, greatly conjuring Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors," but the master of suspense most of all - from the similarities to "Suspicion," to the everyday man in over his head, to the platinum blonde (Rachel McAdams), to unanticipated humor, even down to the malignant intervention by ill-tempered cops - it's classic cinema steeped in deliberate pace and understatement, the way they (with the general exception of George Clooney) don't make 'em anymore.

Even the set and costumes come to the fore, a refreshing rarity for Hollywood that is mostly marked by Pierce Brosnan's continued movement away from the overly-suave James Bond/Thomas Crown characters. From his proper diction, chiseled face, slender build and robot-like grace, down to the way he exhales smoke and wears a fedora, Brosnan seems like an actor born for 40's and 50's period pieces. Evoking a better-looking Jimmy Stewart, it's his professor-like narration (as well as his own ill-plotted interests) that really propels the slow-to-develop story.

And by the time Clarkson has added her own sprinkle of corrupt exuberance - a foil to Cooper's brooding distraction and Brosnan's cool-guy charm - "Married Life" has devolved into an all-out immorality-fest, where everyone's a victim as much as a participant.

Overall it is a portrait of how adult relationships involve what we can take and get from one another; where, exactly, the grass is always greener; and maybe mostly, how you always want what you can't have. Or else, as the idiom that is circularly batted around by the main characters goes: "You can't build happiness on the unhappiness of others."

But upon precisely that Sachs sure has built an engrossing tale.