Adam's Rib

"I want a wife. Not a competitor!" Adam's Rib (1949) by Ruth Gordon (screenplay) and Garson Kanin (screenplay) is a romantic comedy about the trial of a scorned housewife who shoots her cheating husband, and the happily-married attorneys who contentiously represent both of them. Themes of sexism, male-female equality, marital fidelity, protecting the home, and justifiable assault are woven throughout the comical and dramatic repartee of the pseudo-disintegrating legal coupling. At the heart of this story, aside from finding a balance between men and women, is the primary theme of what it takes to sustain a happy marriage. From the beginning, throughout the trial, and to the very end, Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy) and Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) reveal small and big evidence of a marriage that is not only loving and strong, but has the grit and steel of two equally-determined partners who like being happily married, see themselves as more equal than not, and are willing to keep working at it in positive and loving ways--despite the battles--and without compromising their self-respect. The circus-like trial is a clever and fun way to not only promote the equality of the sexes, but to show how a loving couple can be put through their own trial and win.