Edna has been married to Harry for 20 years and has devoted all of her time and energy to their marriage and home. Nobody asked her to do this but she willingly sacrificed her own interests and desires in order to achieve her vision of marital bliss. Every day when Harry goes to the office, Edna immerses herself in the rituals of being the perfect housewife…or her obsessive version of that. Dusting the furniture, washing the clothes, cooking gourmet meals, scrubbing the floors or cleaning window panes, Edna is too busy to ever socialize with friends or pursue any hobbies of her own but doesn’t seem to mind. Then cracks begin to appear in Edna’s perfectly ordered universe. Harry begins working late at the office more often and then a phone call from a friend informs her that Harry is having an affair with his secretary. What could be more predictable or cliched? Yet, Dancing in the Dark (1986), the film adaptation of Joan Barfoot’s acclaimed novel, isn’t a soap opera melodrama about a marriage destroyed by an affair. Instead, this is a chilling psychological portrait of a woman who has allowed her delusions about marriage and domestic bliss to turn her into a victim of her own making. Edna even admits in the opening moments of the film that her story is nothing more than a “simple, ordinary domestic failure.”