Film
Cutie and the Boxer
A portrait of Ushio and Noriko Shinohara's 40-year marriage in New York, where a volatile artist and his long-suffering wife navigate desire, ego, and the possibility of independence. Intimate, sometimes painful, sometimes funny—what it looks like when love and resentment occupy the same small apartment.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy documentaries that let a marriage unfold in messy, funny close-up, where the real drama is two stubborn artists refusing to stop competing and caring for each other.
Skip it if you want a tidy portrait of the art world or steady forward momentum, since its mood is often unruly and its focus stays closely on one volatile household.
What it asks of you: It runs a brisk eighty-one minutes and moves in loose, observational episodes, so it rewards patience with small domestic moments more than with plot.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Grey Gardens1976
Two aging women and their decaying mansion become a mesmerizing portrait of codependency, eccentricity, and family history. Like Cutie and the Boxer, it finds unexpected tenderness in dysfunction.
But A slow documentary with no clear narrative arc—it requires you to sit with discomfort and strangeness without resolution.
Vivarium2019
A documentary about the photographer Vivian Maier that uses found images to investigate identity, recognition, and the unseen labor of artistic women. Shares Cutie's interest in the overlooked creative partner.
But More cerebral and meditative than intimate; some may find it too formally experimental for a straightforward story.
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things2004
A brutal, non-linear portrait of artistic ambition destroying relationships. It captures the same moral ambiguity about whether genius excuses cruelty.
But Genuinely disturbing and nihilistic—not a feel-good documentary, and difficult to watch in stretches.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Cutie and the Boxer
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Scenes from a Marriage2021
Both treat marriage as a work of art worth examining in minute detail—less romance than forensics, with the understanding that the two have never been separate anyway.
Bergman's six-part miniseries dissects a marriage with excruciating honesty, watching it fracture and reform. Like Cutie and the Boxer, it treats marriage as the central human drama—unglamorous, petty, and profound.
But Deeply pessimistic about love and connection; some find it punishing rather than cathartic. Requires patience with long, emotionally exhausting conversations.
More like this (6)
Citizen Jane: Battle for the City2017
A documentary about Jane Jacobs resisting Robert Moses, exploring how one woman's vision challenged powerful male authority in a shared creative/intellectual space.
But More historically focused than personally intimate; the emotional texture is different, more political than domestic.
Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present2012
A documentary about the famous performance artist's life, work, and relationship with her longtime creative partner. Explores art, ego, and connection in a marriage built on artistic collaboration.
But Can feel self-mythologizing at times; Abramović's presence is so commanding it sometimes obscures the actual relationship dynamic.
The Battered Bastards of Baseball2014
A scrappy documentary about an independent baseball team that succeeded against the odds. Shares the DIY spirit and family-centered creative ambition of the Shinohara household.
But Tonally lighter and more triumphalist; lacks the psychological depth and marital complexity you're seeking.
Crumb1995
Terry Zwigoff's documentary about cartoonist Robert Crumb examines artistic genius, family pathology, and the distance between private life and public persona with unflinching honesty.
But Focuses more on the artist than his relationships; psychologically dark in ways that shift the emotional center away from partnership.
The Act of Killing2012
Both documents use the artistic process itself—performance, painting, filmmaking—to investigate complicity, power, and the gap between the person and the artist they've become to the world.
Indonesian documentary where perpetrators of genocide reenact their crimes in the style of Hollywood films. Utterly disorienting formal experiment that uses art and artifice to confront unbearable truth, much like watching Ushio's violent abstractions.
But Morally vertiginous and deliberately unsettling; the formal playfulness serves atrocity, which many find exploitative or obscene.
Women Are Trouble1936
Both examine the economics of marriage and ambition, but from opposite angles—Cutie shows us what happens when a woman tries to claim space in a marriage designed for one person, while this old film shows us why that claiming felt impossible.
A forgotten B-noir where a woman's ambitions constantly thwart the men around her. Relic of an era when female independence was treated as threat rather than triumph—the inverse of the conversation Noriko is having with Ushio.
But A curiosity rather than a great film; the plot is perfunctory and the values are dated. You're watching it as document, not drama.
People
Cast
Noriko ShinoharaSelf
Ushio ShinoharaSelf
Directing
- Zachary HeinzerlingDirector
Production
- Kiki MiyakeExecutive Producer
- Lydia Dean PilcherProducer
- Patrick BurnsProducer
- Sierra PettengillProducer
- Zachary HeinzerlingProducer
Recommended by
Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, Confessions of a Superhero