Film Review: 'Marriage Story'

I watched ‘Marriage Story' the day it was released, loved it, and recommended it to my dearest film-buff friend. After seeing the film to satisfy my bemusement and adoration for everything Noah Baumbach, she messaged me accordingly, and I quote:

“There was the part where Nicole tells Nora about the divorce. And it's just Scarlett Johansson moving around, drinking tea and eating cookies. But it was so real. And I kept wondering what the direction was. “Okay so Scarlett you just walk to the bathroom and walk out then you eat cookies”. SO AUTHENTIC.”

End quote.

That's the gist of what you're getting from ‘Marriage Story', a tearjerking, engrossing, yet decidedly feel-good, almost biographical deep-dive into the emotional and monetary toll of divorce. Whilst nothing groundbreaking, it is magnificently elevated by Noah Baumbach's genius touch, and the unforgettable double-billing that are Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson.

The Story

Scarlett Johansson & Adam Driver as Nicole & Charlie

The title is very much self-explanatory: indeed, you will get your ‘Marriage Story' dues *SPOILERS, but come on, you know how it's gonna end*: couple love, couple marry, couple parent, couple fight, couple divorce, couple hire lawyers to spit in each other's faces, couple fight but it's so realistic you can practically touch their faces, couple agree on divorce terms, couple read each other's letters, audience cries, end film.

Basic stuff. But it hits a bit too close to home.

A bit more context would suffice: Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) are an actress-Broadway director power couple trying to amicably divorce, mainly due to their differing locational preferences: Nicole wants the sunny beaches and high-profile TV production glitz-and-glam of Los Angeles, whilst Charlie indulges himself in the glamorous artistically-rich-but-damn-if-i-ain't-broke Broadway scene in New York, almost to the point of fetishism.

The simple situation is complicated when their 8 year-old son, Henry, (Azhy Robertson) comes into the picture: should he be with his nurturing mom in a dangerously carefree L.A. household eerily resemblant of a Witness Protection Program, or should he stay with his strict, emotionally-distant, yet sophistically endearing father in ruthless N.Y.?

The audience, with their own preferences, gets to pick sides, and should find themselves in Henry's shoes more often than not, as the once-amicable separation spirals out of Nicole and Charlie’s increasingly malfunctioning control.

Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and That Scene

That scene.

First of all, I have to give credit where credit is due: Laura Dern absolutely deserves Best Supporting Actress for her role as the high-priced, high-wired divorce lawyer Nora, who works as both a plot device and a tipping point for Nicole and Charlie’s amicable separation to no longer be amicable.

End credit.

Now: Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson.

Gushing about actors is not my forte: I'd take a well-written, well-shot, or well-edited film over a well-acted film any day. But damn, did these two bring it.

Ignoring everything they had done previously in the film: the raw emotions, the complex thought processes translated into both love and vulgarity, the simple promise of watching two established, talented actors going head-to-head in a battle of mind, wisdom and endurance. Their efforts should not be discounted, particularly Johansson as she turns in her career best work, but it shall remain redundant when the legacy of the film remains.

There's a pivotal scene, the climax, if you will, of this bare-bones, intimate story, the one that has undoubtedly popped up on your Facebook feed or your Youtube recommendation if you have the slightest interest in films. It should alone give the film the “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" mark of preservation from the National Film Registry.

An acting masterclass

If you haven't experienced the magnitude of these actors in that scene, I shan't spoil it. But the scene encompassed these larger-than-life characters, brought down to our levels of mortality. I watched it, and felt as if my parents were on-screen: the couple's intonations, the efforts to push and release, the inconsistent flow of emotions,... boiling the conflict to its decidedly frosty reality: that Nicole and Charlie simply can't co-exist anymore.

It's acting, at its most subtle, yet spectacularly bombastic and nuanced from two actors having their best year yet, who both, oddly enough, had just exited mega Disney franchises (Adam Driver with an Oscar nomination and The Rise of Skywalker; Scarlett Johansson with 2 Oscar nominations, plus a Black Widow movie).

Unlike someone front-running the Best Actor race. *Oh SNAP*

Noah Baumbach and The Film's Artistic Choices

Cast and crew of 'Marriage Story'

Noah Baumbach has his own shared universe, a “Baumbachverse” if you may. The films in Baumbachverse include the following details, but not limited to:

• Quirky, but strictly not douchey, uber-realistic characters based on their real life actors' exaggerated personas: Nicole Kidman as douchey Nicole Kidman in Margot at the Wedding, Dustin Hoffman as douchey Dustin Hoffman in Meyerowitz Stories,...

• Impossibly difficult mid-life situations taken from the ordinary: A divorce in Meyerowitz Stories, a wedding in Margot at the Wedding, struggling freshman year in Mistress America,...

• Arguments, fights, conflicts,... with overlapping dialogues

• Greta Gerwig

• Melancholy, quirky score composed by Randy Newman, or no music at all.

Characterized by a commitment to real life, Baumbach’s films take exaggerated characters and personas, put them into extraordinarily mundane situations, and ask them to follow a carefully written script to the dot. Marriage Story is as Baumbach as it can be, but it never holds the sense of hope or lingering indifference that has been imprinted upon his characters: it is leading to a divorce, through and through.

Yet, when the credits roll, there's a sense of bittersweet finality, as if you had embarked on this journey alongside these lovely characters, and their lives will go on, just as yours will after a setback, a failure or a heartbreak.

'Marriage Story' and 'Kramer vs. Kramer'

Baumbach draws heavily from Kramer vs. Kramer, another film focused on the trials and tribulations of divorce, but instead of focusing on Adam Driver’s relationship with his son, like Dustin Hoffman’s in KvK, both characters are given equal screen time, development in reasons for divorce, and are easily sympathetic: You never feel like one or the other is the villain, much as Meryl Streep was characterized as one in KvK.

You can pick sides, but you’re supporting both throughout.

Overall: A+

A feel-good tearjerker, all things considered.

It's a marvelous, earnest tearjerker, catered with a silver spoon by Baumbach's masterful screenplay and career-defining roles from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, roles that, if justice exists, should see them going home with at least 1 Oscar come the 92nd Academy Awards.

It also works handily as a double-feature alongside Kramer vs. Kramer, and, strangely enough, Uncut Gems, which also features an amicable divorce and New York's exhilarating breath.

I highly recommend it to fans of the director and the double-billings, divorce attorneys, divorced parents, alimony couples, edgy sad teens (cause you'll cry) and theatre buffs (Acting! Stage! Rehearsals! Extravagant Costumes!).

I would not recommend it to kids of divorces (lest you want PTSD), Jennifer Jason Leigh, and those who didn't know that Adam Driver was in the Marine.

Available on Netflix.