Film
Losing Ground
Losing Ground is a sharp, funny dissection of a marriage between two artists at odds: Sara, a buttoned-up philosophy professor, and Victor, her ebullient painter husband. Shot with warmth and intelligence, it's a film about desire, intellectual pretension, desire again, and the unbridgeable gaps that can open up between people who love each other. For anyone who's felt the sting of being misunderstood by someone close.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like talky, unhurried films about marriage and ambition, where the arguments are sharp, funny and specific, and a painter's joy and a scholar's doubt collide in a sunny, pastoral setting.
Skip it if you need plot momentum, since very little happens beyond conversations, sunlit walks and a steady accumulation of irritation between the couple.
What it asks of you: Settle in for roughly an hour and a half of loose, talky scenes that drift rather than build, with dry humor that sits beside a melancholy undertow.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Daughters of the Dust1991
Another film about Black American experience told through a female-centered lens with visual poetry and formal ambition. Traces a family across generational time with similar interest in interior lives and the spaces between people.
But Its lyrical, dreamlike pacing and narrative fragmentation demand patience. Some will find it oblique where they want clarity.
Wanda1970
A portrait of a woman drifting through life with her own kind of quiet rebellion. Like Losing Ground, it's intimate and observant about female agency and desire without being preachy about it.
But It's deliberately unresolved and unhurried. There's no catharsis, just the texture of a life being lived.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017
Beneath its genre-thriller surface is a dissection of marriage, power imbalances, and what husbands owe their wives. Both films hide their real subjects in plain sight.
But Bleak, methodical, and alienating by design. The tone is deliberately cold in ways that will frustrate people seeking warmth.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Losing Ground
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Three Colors: Blue1993
Both films treat color, composition, and visual detail as part of their moral argument. Both believe what a room looks like and how light falls tells you something true about a character's interior life.
Kieslowski's hypnotic study of a woman rebuilding identity after loss, shot in jewel-toned cinematography. The emotional register—quiet, precise, visually intoxicated—mirrors Losing Ground's sensory intelligence despite the very different subject.
But It's philosophically dense and intentionally mysterious. Viewers wanting narrative clarity or conventional plot will leave frustrated. Some find it precious.
More like this (7)
Shirley2020
Elisabeth Moss as a writer wife married to a writer husband, both brilliant and both cruel in their own ways. Similar fascination with how two intelligent people can be utterly incompatible.
But The portrait of creative dysfunction is relentless without being redemptive. Some viewers will find it too much spite and not enough insight.
The Ballad of Little Jo1993
Suzy Amis as a woman who reinvents herself entirely to claim her own life. Like Sara, she's refusing the world's script for her, though taking very different means to do it.
But It's a Western, and some of its period details feel occasionally dated. The tonal shifts between period piece and character study can feel uneven.
If Beale Street Could Talk2018
Barry Jenkins' ravishing portrait of a marriage under siege, held together by two people choosing each other despite the world's weight. The visual and emotional language shares Losing Ground's belief in sensory richness.
But Its pacing is measured to the point of stillness. Viewers accustomed to conventional narrative momentum may find it slow.
Scenes from a Marriage2021
Bergman's brutal, tender examination of a marriage over time. Same fundamental question: how do two people stay together when they've become strangers? Essential watching for anyone interested in the subject.
But It's Swedish, it's from 1973, and it takes its time. The emotional exhaustion of watching a marriage unravel is precisely the point, and not everyone wants that.
A Fantastic Woman2017
A widow fighting a world determined to erase her relationship and her identity. Like Sara, she's intelligent and uncompromising, refusing the role others write for her.
But Its magical realism and metaphorical language some will find overstated. The deliberate estrangement from naturalism isn't for everyone.
Naked1993
Mike Leigh's portrait of a brilliant, misanthropic man whose intellect doesn't save him. Shares the film's interest in how intelligence and talent can coexist with emotional cruelty.
But Punishingly bleak and deliberately unpleasant. The protagonist is contemptible, and the film never lets you forget it.
Tongues Untied1990
Both are films by Black artists made in the 1980s that refuse the terms set by mainstream culture, insisting on their own forms and their own right to center desire, intelligence, and joy as radical acts.
Marlon Riggs' radical documentary-essay about Black gay men's lives and desire, mixing performance, interview, archive, and poetry. Like Losing Ground, it refuses to separate the personal from the political and insists on Black pleasure and visibility as urgent subjects.
But It's explicitly sexual and confrontational in ways that startled audiences in 1989 and will still startling now. Not a comfortable watch. Documentary form means no plot to carry you.
People
Cast
Seret ScottSara
Bill GunnVictor
Duane JonesDuke
Maritza RiveraCelia
Billie AllenMother
Gary BollingGeorge
Maureen GradyFemale Student in Office- Clarence Branch Jr.Man on Radio
- Joe GarciaOther Student in Class
Directing
- Kathleen CollinsDirector
Writing
- Kathleen CollinsWriter
Production
- Kathleen CollinsExecutive Producer
- Ronald K. GrayExecutive Producer
- Eleanor CharlesProducer
Recommended by
Owned: A Tale of Two Americas, Brooklyn Boheme, Burning an Illusion