Review 537: Marriage Story

Marriage Story is a wonderfully told, emotionally poignant and deeply affecting dramedy film and another showcase for Noah Baumbach's impecable writing as well as two terrific performances from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson

Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) and his wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) are a married stage director and an actor who struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal and creative extremes.

The plot is a wonderful showcase for Noah Baumbach's impeccable writing. He crafts a rare divorce story that feels for both characters. Even after grieving what they loose, the film makes us as an audience feel optimistic about their separation because these two people who do love each other, ultimately don't belong together and that's ok.

It's a film that finds love in a hopeless place. 

The films title tells us everything that we need to know: It's a story of a marriage as a whole, told from the vantage point of its final days. 

Baumbach tells the story from the point-of-view of the parents. One of the smartest moves that Baumbach makes creatively right from the start is to show what's loveable about his characters in question in each others eyes before cutting to showcasing their flaws as human beings. Eventually we watch their lawyers twist and turn their narratives to create dark, damning portraits of each client

In terms of structure and genre, Marriage Story is a very genre-fluid film, there's elements of courtroom and legal drama with dashes of screwball comedy sprinkled on top due to it dealing the serving of divorce papers

The feeling of a severing between Charlie and Nicole is emphasised in the scenes where they feel pulled or are even visually cut off from each other.

Whilist Baumbach has emphasised that this film is not autobiographical, parallels between this film and his own personal feelings and experiences. Particularly to Baumbach's relationship with his ex-wife Jennifer Jason Leigh (an LA born actress and the mother of Baumbach's first born son) much like Scarlett Johansson's Nicole in this film.

Much like Charlie and Nicole's cross country divorse in Marriage Story, Leigh moved back to LA whilist Baumbach stayed primarily in New York.

Resulting in a story that feels chillingly universal, anyone can see something familiar in Baumbach's poignant portrait of how love can coexist with conflict, pain and even hatred.

Baumbach never opts for easy answers when handling Charlie and Nicole divorce or chooses a side. He gives both sides the equal weight and attention that they deserve and takes care to honour the good things that remain between these two people, no matter how angry and hurt they both feel. 

Noah Baumbach's direction is excellently precise and intense. Even though this film is a drama, Baumbach directs this film like a thriller delivering a fast-paced, sad, poignant and the cinematography is beautiful and captures the beauty of the locations, the lighting is splendid, the New York and L.A. settings are rich, vibrant and exuberant. The costumes are fantastic, the score by Randy Newman is lovely 

Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver are excellent in this film. They deliver expertly nuanced performances playing Nicole and Charlie Barber. Despite they're quarrel, the film frames they as fundamentally good parents which suggests that their son Henry will emerge more or less unscathed. 

Laura Dern is also very strong playing Nora Fanshaw, Nicole's lawyer.

Alan Alda

5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.