We might all have domestic arguments that demand to be preserved on film for their drama, but few of them would ever live up to the intensity, eloquence and glamour of the barneys between American photographer Joel Meyerowitz and his English wife, novelist and artist Maggie Barrett.
The best (or worst) of those clashes comes toward the end of the extraordinary, intimate documentary of Joel and Maggie’s marriage, aptly entitled Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other (their own private update on “till death us do part”). In that final set-to, Maggie conjures all the frustrations of the 30 years they have been together – years in which Joel has become ever more world-famous and celebrated as a photographer, and she has seen her novels rejected by publishers and her paintings go unsold – and lets them go in a formidable rush.
