My Love Affair with Marriage

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2:03

My Love Affair with Marriage

2023

1h 48m

Musical

Comedy

Drama

Animation

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

90%

Tomatometer

31 Reviews

89%

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

From an early age, songs and fairytales convinced Zelma that Love would solve all her problems as long as she abided by societal expectations of how a girl should act. But as she grew older something didn’t seem right with the concept of love: the more she tried to conform, the more her body resisted. A story about the acceptance of the inner female rebellion.

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Critics Consensus

My Love Affair with Marriage is easy to appreciate for its beautiful animation alone -- but this is also a daring, unpredictable story told through a strong feminist lens.

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Alissa Simon

Variety

Dec 28, 2023

With “My Love Affair with Marriage,” animator Signe Baumane creates another dense personal narrative that expresses complicated concepts and ideas in images.

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Sheri Linden

The Hollywood Reporter

Oct 12, 2023

With its fine mix of dark humor, healthy anger and self-compassion, this portrait of the artist as a young woman is the work of an inspired filmmaker, and it was worth the wait.

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Natalia Winkelman

New York Times

Oct 5, 2023

It’s a moody, unpredictable tale of love and loss, stuffed with vivid metaphors, Soviet period detail and pedagogical sequences about the physiology of love.

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John Daniel Tangalin

The Cinema Spot

Jul 19, 2025

4.5/5

My Love Affair with Marriage is a beautiful narrative that takes the viewer through the stages of love and life. Baumane’s greatest feat deals with the libidinal decisions of her characters, who are ultimately just reflections of what comprises her past.

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Anna Hoang

Boston Hassle

Jul 14, 2025

3/5

The story holds less hostility and more wistfulness. The choice in mixed media — traditional pencil art drawn by Baumane placed on 3D sets coated by paper-mâché — creates a kind of fabled storybook that you’d find in an attic.

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Wade Major

FilmWeek (LAist)

Nov 1, 2023

Ethereal and episodic, sort of like an arthouse Inside Out... Technically impressive and very engaging, but emotionally I never made the extra jump.

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Keith

Oct 9, 2023

I found the film engaging and I was pulled into the story by the Zelma's journey. I found her inspiring through all the hardships she faced in trying to find love. The animation was just beautiful and added incredible layers to each frame. The end credits song is to die for! Telling all my friends to get out and see it.

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William K

Oct 8, 2023

An impressive labor of love. Absolutely worth seeing.

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Susanna

Oct 7, 2023

Lovely storytelling and informative analysis!

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Cpt K

@Pheartbeak Dec 25, 2024

A Karen Kartoon, validating neurotic women who behave atrociously and abusively towards their family, take zero accountability, and blame the world for being unlovable.

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Ken M

@El_Escritor Oct 15, 2023

An unabashed look at a developing woman's interior life as she boils over under the combined pressures of lingering Soviet-era oppression, then Rural, then Cosmopolitan, chapters of her life - all in a narrative knit together, in an almost tongue-in-cheek fashion, with her scientifically up-to-date biological development. This faceted jewel of a film gleams with trials of human frailty, bravery, and contradiction that are brilliantly and moodily hand-crafted in a unique Indie-Animation style, all from traditional and originally hand-crafted materials. It stands in the Indie Canon, and the greater Animation Canon, as a film evocative of the brave editorial styles of the pioneering days of hand-drawn animation, AND a great contrast to the polish of mass-produced CGI.

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Synopsis

From an early age, songs and fairytales convinced Zelma that Love would solve all her problems as long as she abided by societal expectations of how a girl should act. But as she grew older something didn’t seem right with the concept of love: the more she tried to conform, the more her body resisted. A story about the acceptance of the inner female rebellion.

Director: Signe Baumane
Screenwriter: Signe Baumane
Distributor: 8 Above
Production Co: Studio Locomotive, The Marriage Project, Antevita Films
Genre: Musical, Comedy, Drama, Animation
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 6, 2023, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 20, 2024
Runtime: 1h 48m

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