Frederick Wiseman's A Couple is based on a short story by Sophia Tolstoy, the wife of the famed Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. The original story takes the form of a retrospective letter from Sophia to Tolstoy in her later years. Here, Wiseman asks, what is a cinematic adaptation that does not undermine the value of a literary work? Experienced reenacting a letter from a woman to her son in his 2002 film The Last Letter, Wiseman hired an actress to bring the richly nuanced original text into the film and applied the reenactment. Arguing whether it is narrative or non-narrative does not help to judge the true value of this film. This is because A Couple is a documentary based on text that explores whether the tone, emotion, and nuance of text can be fully preserved when translated into image. Juxtaposed with natural objects such as pond bushes and rocks submerged in waves, ants climbing trees, birds and flowers, Sophia's letters are recited by actress Natalie Boutefeu. In the process of adaptation, “fidelity” is translated into a completely new fictional film, a documentary film with a different meaning.​​