alternative ending

The whole script turns on the Mark Ruffalo character. His wife, the Laura Dern character, pines for a more affectionate relationship with him. Her best friend, the Naomi Watt character, has a letch for him, an itch in her britches that he knows how to scratch. And the Peter Krause character is getting some kind of a kinky excitement from having an adulterous affair with Ruffalo's wife and is comfortable, or even strangely turned on by, his own wife getting it on with the other guy. When we get to the scene in the kitchen near the end of the movie when the Mark Ruffalo character goes over to talk to the other couple, it's clear that no one is getting exactly what they want as a resolution to the awkwardness.


So my solution would have been to have Mark Ruffalo keep satisfying both wives, AND the other husband, whose discomfort seems to be partly that he feels left out, like an extra wheel. I actually thought at two points in that scene that the men were going to hug, or kiss, or something. Just to, like, resolve the tension.