Marriage Story Review
A stage director and his actor wife struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal and creative extremes.
R: For language throughout and sexual referencesProduction Companies: Heyday Films, NetflixDistributor: NetflixRuntime: 2 Hours and 16 MinutesDirector/Writer: Noah BaumbachCast: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray LiottaRelease Date: November 6, 2019 (Limited) | December 6, 2019 (Streaming)Noah Baumbach. Talk about being a New York filmmaker. Nobody captures contemporary NYC and the characteristics of a native as accurately as he does. At long last, two years after The Meyerowitz Stories — which I admittedly still haven’t seen but have heard nothing but great things about — he’s back with a new dramedy called Marriage Story, a movie about a divorce. Yeah, the title kind of blows but the movie fucking rules. Let me describe the plot in the style of Avril Lavigne's “Sk8er Boi”:He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?She found his emails. He cheated on her. Loveless marriage for many years.He directs theater in New York City. She wants to be free in Los Angeles.She lawyers up with Laura Dern. Now he must be there for his needy kid.This a Marriage Story, but really it’s a divorce story.He wasn’t good enough for her.Charlie was a shitty hub, but you really feel for him.Battling for custody from Nicole.
If you’re the child of divorced parents (like me!) or have been through a divorce, this movie will — and I mean this from the bottom of my heart — fuck you up, even more so than Wildlife, which was mostly told through the perspective of a child witnessing the separation of his parents. Marriage Story observes the grueling legal process for both parties in a humanist outlook that captures the heartbreak of a flamed out marriage with real drama, but there are also comedic elements to keep the energy high despite the bleak subject. It captures the realities of what a divorce can do to a separating spouse. It can transform people who were once lovers into mortal enemies. Jordin Sparks said it best: Love is like a battlefield. And yeah, that lyric applies to divorce, too. With a juggernaut of an ensemble featuring hard-hitting performers like Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, and Ray Liotta, the cast delivers their fucking grade-A best. Their performances are award-worthy as most of them are stripped of their celebrity and they capture the authentic notions of real people in the midst of a divorce. Baumbach’s direction is praise-worthy, but there are two people who RULE: Adam Driver and Laura Dern. Adam fucking Driver. This man can sign up for anything and he’ll never half-ass a performance. Lately, he’s been taking his talents to a *Keegan Michael Key voice* whole notha’ level. The 6’2” tall glass of water of a man delivers a top-notch leading performance where he’s required to be the emotionally absent and nonchalant husband. As the film progresses, you see him crumble in a way that most people that have experienced divorce can relate to. As the major focus of the film — having more screen time and having the camera trained on him — you sense his emotions boiling while facing the consequences of his actions and being tested outside of his comfort zone. His character, Charlie, is not a good husband. He’s a heavily flawed person, but you’re gripped by him all the way through the story. By the time he goes through one of many emotional breakdowns, your tears become a river. It’s not a musical by any means, but there is a moment where Driver breaks into a song from a very popular show tune and by that point you have him locked as your Oscar pick for Best Actor of 2019. I can relate to singing a song of despair in front of your friends as an emotional cathartic release and having your swelling voice break as you get more emotional. Driver delivers a phenomenal performance and deserves all the praise he gets. Hopefully, this will be his second outing on an award tour.
Now, Laura Dern. She dominates every scene she appears in. She portrays Nicole’s lawyer and I swear to you she is pulling a Renata if Renata became a divorce lawyer after she herself divorced Gordon. She has the same wit, smarts, and sass as her iconic character, but she also has a bit of Madeline’s snarkiness which replaces her unstableness and epic tantrum fits. It’s as if Renata found herself after the six-month vacation where she became more reserved in terms of anger but still retains her badass savage persona. Plus, her character also lives in LA so this might as well be a Big Little Lies spinoff. I’m just gonna put that theory into the universe.Scarlett Johansson is great as well. For most of the film — despite Charlie’s journey — you emotionally side with her. There are so many detailed, emotional moments where you feel the heartbreak of her grand decision… and shit, she even made me tear up, too. One of the primary personal reasons why I adore this movie is how, in the midst of the main story, Baumbach incorporates a fish-out-of-water element to Charlie’s experience. After a while, the focus deviates over to Charlie who chooses to drop everything in NYC and move out to LA so he can be closer to his son. The longer he stays in town, the more we view LA as its own entity, full of weird, fake, aggressive people that live to put on a show. He must adjust to his surroundings while trying to be a good father. Plus, nearly every other line he has is, “We live in New York”. Like, he would not stop mentioning New York, which is such a distinct New York trait. Once we leave our city, we never shut the hell up about it. While I don’t know a damn thing about being a divorcee, I know exactly how Charlie felt being a New Yorker in LA and having to adjust to the offbeat mindset of the natives. The personalities and the environment are so distinct it's like Noah analyzed everyone in LA and used that influence to craft the characters that live in the city. The first half of the film is set on Nicole, who expresses her burning disdain towards Charlie as a husband, and you certainly witness as his mentioned flaws come into fruition. But once he hits LA, you side with him and feel his frustrations on a harmonious level. While he doesn’t handle all situations gracefully, he’s doing the best he can and he handles them better than I know I ever would.
Besides the performances and story elements, it’s Baumbach’s rich original screenplay that triumphs the most. One can easily make a story centered on divorce either too melodramatic or too silly, but this balances the drama and the comedy perfectly. Each character is engaging and they all have quirks, especially the side characters, that correlates with people we may have encountered throughout life. I’m 21 and I can attest to the hardships of maintaining relationships with the parents of someone you once loved, and that dynamic is present here. The way that characters interact, displaying their human flaws via subtle gestures and dialogue, and by having everyone be likable yet flawed people is the most important aspect that I gravitated towards. I would use this film as an example of how to write likable flawed people. Also, there are so many incredible comedic moments that are funny and relatable. The way the arguments between Charlie and Nicole escalate are organic, where you can feel their heightened emotions and their individual stubbornness come to play. This results in the heartbreak of hurting someone that you love, even if that love doesn’t have the same meaning anymore. Ugh, the more I type about this the more I tear up just thinking about it.Before my conclusion let me just say, Randy Newman, you can’t hide your distinguishable score from me! Don’t think I didn’t hear you recycle your shit! Throughout the movie, I kept thinking, “Wow, this score is great. I love how it plays specifically during the quiet sentimental moments between Charlie and Nicole, but it reminds me so much of Randy Newman’s Monsters Inc. It sounds SO MUCH LIKE IT!” Then, when the credits rolled and Randy Newman’s name popped up, I went, “AHA! I KNEW IT! YOU WHORE!” Recycling bits of your scores for new non-Disney stuff when it sounds exactly like your Disney stuff.
Raw, honest, and well balanced with its comedy and drama, Marriage Story is a brilliantly written and powerfully performed deconstruction of a broken marriage that’s put out to pasture in a timeless manner in the most Noah Baumbach way possible. Simply put, it’s Baumbach at his Baumbest. Rating: 5/5 | 97%
