Sometimes, no matter how much you try to make a relationship work, things just don't turn out how you expected. It seems like this was definitely the case with Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. After an eight-year marriage, the couple announced they had called it quits in August 2017. It's hard not to wonder if Anna Faris and Chris Pratt's body language during the months leading up to their split hinted at their impending divorce, especially because they seemed so blissfully in love.
The real tear-jerker is the fact that these two had such a romatic start. According to Cosmopolitan, they first met in 2007 while filming Take Me Home Tonight and seemed to have had an immediate connection. Faris was married at the time, but ended up divorcing her then-husband, actor Ben Indra, shortly after filming the movie, Pratt told Elle. While there has been much speculation over why the two ultimately decided to end things, neither have publically gone into the specific details of what went down.
In a heartfelt Instagram post from last August, both actors simply said that they "tried hard for a long time" and were "really dissapointed," but asked that the public respect their privacy for the sake of their five-year-old son, Jack Pratt.
I spoke with body language expert Traci Brown to get some insight into the months leading up to Faris and Pratt's split.
"We see the angry eyebrows and non smiling eyes [and] we see a subdued smile from Chris," Brown tells Elite Daily. "He usually smiles with his mouth open, but this time it's closed. So they're trying to make good here but the tiny tells say it's not working."
Sadly, it would seem that these two may have been on the rocks way back in December 2016, during the premiere of Pratt's movie, Passengers. But the truth of the matter is that sometimes there's just a disconnect between two people that becomes more and more obvious over time.
"They're just so reserved towards each other," notes Brown. "They're doing 'polite' instead of showing real passion toward each other."
And while it can be easy to speculate what's going on between two people from the outside, the private intricacies of every relationship aren't always obvious to on-lookers. But here, as Brown pointed out, they seem to be rather detached.
"He's got his arm wrapped around her and is pulling her in tight. Is this the time in their relationship where he's still hanging on and she's started to check out? Maybe so," explains Brown.
And I mean, it's pretty hard to ignore Faris' facial expression, which seems to be a cross between a forced smile and a cringe.
But one of the hardest parts about being a couple in the public eye — especially when you are working through a rough patch — must be having to pretend like everything's fine when it's not. Most couples who are on the rocks don't have to constantly worry about being watched and ridiculed, on top of all of the pressures surrounding trying to save a marriage
"Their body angles are fairly consistent throughout, so they do have their attention on each other throughout, but happiness fades over time," says Brown.
Just because you are no longer happy with a relationship, doesn't mean that every moment you spend together is terrible. Pratt getting his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is a huge accomplishment, and so it totally makes sense that despite their issues, they both look genuinely happy.
"When they're on the Walk of Fame, she's holding on to him with both hands — there's a deep connection there," says Brown.
Even though the relationship didn't work out in the end, it's clear that these two definitely still care about each other.
"We still love each other and will always cherish our time together," the couple said in the joint statement annoucing their split. No matter how much love you have for someone, at this point most of us know that love isn't enough to keep a relationship on the up and up. Sometimes things run their course and it's time to go your separate ways, but that doesn't take anything away from the love you shared in the past. Love, even if it falls apart in the end, is never a waste of time.
