4/5 stars At the beginning of Elizabeth Lo’s absorbing and often painful-to-watch documentary, a caption informs us that in China, professionals can be hired to intervene in the midst of marital discord and break up an ongoing affair. All those featured in Mistress Dispeller, which premiered today in the Orrizonti section at the Venice Film … Read more
Yet, while affairs happen all over the world, hiring professional dispellers – who can charge the equivalent of over US$10,000 – is a practice specific to mainland China. Bound by familial duty and unnerved by the enduring stigma of divorce, scorned partners, typically women, turn to dispellers as a last resort. A poster of Mistress … Read more
A man is suing Apple for $6 million after his wife found messages he’d sent to sex workers, even though he thought he’d deleted them. The man, who wants to remain anonymous, claims Apple wasn’t clear about how messages are deleted, and this led to the breakdown of his marriage. Speaking to The Times, the … Read more
In your story “Neighbors,” a couple moves west to San Francisco in the wake of an infidelity, hoping to “redraw the map” of their marriage. While they are there, the husband has an eerie encounter in a neighbor’s house. These two strands of the narrative are seemingly unrelated, but, of course, this is a crafted … Read more
