Rob and Laura Petrie of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Perhaps a bit too glamorous, but the first convincing couple on TV. Rob and Laura actually had “chemistry”, and you could tell they actually had sex. I don’t yet know how Ricky and Lucy had Little Ricky…and they were married in real life!
Also, Grandma and Grandpa Walton are very much like my own grandparents. And from the stories I’ve heard, almost exactly like my great grandparents. And my great grandparents were born roughly the same time Zeb and Esther were born. They are very real to me- very much a loving couple, but they’ve been together so long that they constantly pick at each other and get into minor arguments all the time. They can be completely honest like that because they both know they can’t live without each other.
I don’t know if the couple was actually supposed to be married, but Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston in The Break Up.
The movie as a whole was pretty insipid. But there’s a great five minute scene early on, that’s probably one of the best depictions of relationship discord I’ve ever seen, where a disagreement about doing dishes turns into a huge blow up with the characters listing all their grievances. A pretty realistic portrayal, IMHO, of how things can snowball quickly when you’re having a seemingly minor spat with your SO.
I was always impressed with Entourage’s Ari and the relationship he had with is wife. I drifted away from the show a while ago so I guess I have no idea if they stayed married the whole time, but when I was watching it they always had a good relationship
The Harts of Hart to Hart and the Cosbys. Not very realistic but quite loving. Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpsons on Newlyweds. This was the first and only Big Brother type reality show I ever watched. It was so obvious Nick loved is pretty, dumb, privileged and useless young wife.
Also with the Maitlands, when they started rapidly decomposing, Alec Baldwin’s jawbone drops up and Geena Davis thoughtfully picks it back up for him. A spouse’s first thought is to help out, not be repulsed by whatever weird situation you find youself in!
I really liked JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist, dealing both with everyday suburbia family life and then horrific child-endagering Tobe Hooper stuff.
Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie as Mr. and Mrs. Stoller in Breaking Away are pitch perfect. They could be an Indiana version of my parents. Their performances are really what make this film extraordinary.
Agreed as to both. I still remember Frank and Joyce wrestling with the issue of her infertility.
The married couple played by Ahnuld and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies clearly loved each other, then had some problems but worked through them in… an interesting way, and were all the stronger for it afterwards.
