I cannot stop being mildly amused that I headed out on the Tuesday after Christmas to see Marti, dupa craciun (Tuesday, After Christmas) at the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) — clearly a little film programming joke from Lori Donnelly.

In the film, Paul is married to Adriana and together they have a child, but Paul is also involved in a long-term relationship with the girl's dentist, Raluca. There is no doubt how the story will play out: the relationship with Raluca will replace Paul's relationship with Adriana, and the film takes careful, deliberate steps to let us watch this unfold. As the Eastman House calendar so eloquently put it, the film captures "its trio of lived-in performances with graceful, uninterrupted long takes and a knowing sense of the human comedy."

As I watched with from my odd personal vantage point, I couldn't help but think, "it's such a shame they want it to go so badly — they really believe that anything but unwavering, complete monogamy is a fatal, destructive flaw."

Instead, what if the central couple understood that all of one's needs — intellectual, emotional, sexual, support, etc. — simply cannot be met adequately by one other person forever. Keep the core of devotion, but allow for needs and desires to be negotiated. If Adriana knew that Paul was sexually and emotionally in need, and she did not want to (or could not) fulfill those needs herself, why not let Paul fulfill them elsewhere? I'm sure likewise that Paul did not meet every one of Adriana's needs, so she too could be free to find fulfillment some other way. Why let it build from a mild hunger to desperate starvation when a tiny morsel at the outset would do just as well?

What we call a "normal healthy relationship" sure is weird to me.