martha

RJ Cutler doesn’t shy away from showing Martha as she is, which is to say stoic, strong-willed, and certainly lacking much self awareness. The rules sometimes seem different for her, as exampled by her saying when men cheat on their wives they’re a piece of sh*t, but when Cutler points out she had an affair early in her relationship with her husband, she says it doesn’t count. She’s also a bit obtuse about the relationship with a father who sounds like he was abusive.

The subtext of Martha is the familiar story of an accomplished, powerful woman held to an impossible standard and judged in ways that men of equal or lesser stature never are. Yet, it’s Stewart who gets the final say, as she slowly rebuilt her career, wealth and reputation in the years after her five-month prison stint. Martha is a story of reinvention and redemption, topped with a sprinkling of sweet revenge.