Marriage Story, a film written & directed by Noah Baumbach. 2019.
Spoiler-Free
There aren’t many movies in which this Florida girl will spontaneously drop everything and fly to New York alone for. But Marriage Story, starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, is definitely one of them.
And I bought the plane tickets before I knew how good it’d be.
“Good” is an understatement, by the way. “Incredible” is closer, but even that falls short. This movie is well written, well-shot, well-paced, well-acted… well, it’s everything. It’s a quality, top-notch movie with top-notch performances from both Johansson and Driver and the rest of the cast.
It wrestles with dichotomy – of cities, of genders, of parenting styles – all without picking a side. Writer and director Baumbach is careful of that. He presents the relationship and the world as it is, dropping facts but no judgement. He develops Johansson’s Nicole and Driver’s Charlie with equal care, forcing viewers to feel double the heartbreak. A “win” for one just means loss for the other.
His script is almost infuriatingly fair; truly, neither character is painted the villain nor the victim. And sometimes, they’re both… both. Baumbach knows audiences come with their own baggage, their own ideas of divorce, and he tries to make the playing field as even and unbiased as he can while presenting them as authentically as possible.
It’s too hard to hate either of them; their pain is too real, their situation too complex. Sure, I wanted to smack Charlie on the back of the head a few times, and, sure, I cheered on Nicole as she took steps to control her own future, but I still respected and wished the best for both characters.
A lot of it comes from just how well-acted each performance is. I’m not sure how someone can even pull that much emotion and energy out of their bodies and into a room, but both Johansson and Driver accomplish it. They pour their souls into these characters, and it pays off, big time.
“I can’t believe I have to know you forever.”
Their love, their hate, their heartbreak, it’s all palpable. But for every painful moment stabbing you through the heart, there’s a moment of genuine lightheartedness. More than once, I was laughing while tears streamed down my face.
The comedy isn’t out of place, either, which could have easily happened, given the main topic is divorce. But the jokes keep the story grounded, shaping the world around our characters, painting a realistic picture of how friends and family and careers work when a marriage falls apart.
Like, yeah, life sucks. But it also moves on. And you gotta keep living while it does.
And, oh, the observations this story includes! This film is worth watching for Laura Dern’s critique of gender roles alone. It’s on the nose, but it isn’t down your throat. And it’s perfect.
It’s not the only societal commentary this film includes, either. It’s all there, the age-old NY vs LA rivalry, the coparenting arguments, handling a career with a kid, giving up your dreams for someone else’s. This film captures it all with a knowing eye and an unapologetic voice.
For something that could have been an in-depth, painful study of the mundanity of divorce, you’re never bored. This film is engrossing, and that’s an understatement. You don’t even notice the 2 hours and 16 minutes passing by, because you’re so drawn into the lives of these characters.
The mundanity is still there, just by nature, but instead of glossing over it to focus on the bigger moments, Baumbach celebrates it. In fact, he seamlessly time jumps over the “major” life moments to instead focus on the smaller ones – the car seat not being buckled, the parental bribery in the form of presents, the sly comments from family, the in-between car conversations.
Those are what are important. Those are what shape our characters into the people they are. The small moments pointed out during the trailer’s monologues are the ones this film strives to capture again and again, and, by doing so, allow the audience to create their own ideas of Charlie and Nicole.
“I forgot that’s how it ended.”
The fading out of the scenes every so often – did they make up five acts? I’ll have to rewatch – was a great homage to Charlie’s day job as a theatre director. It really did feel like they were standing on a stage, presenting the story of their lives to us.
But that story is revealed only as it falls apart. Johansson and Driver give stand-out performances, meticulously capturing both the pain, the hope, and the change divorce brings into the lives of the newly-non-married.
The difficult days aren’t forever, and Marriage Story gives us an intimate, heartfelt look at just how true that is.
Alternatively: don’t have kids.
Kidding. Marriage Story releases in theaters November 6th and on Netflix December 6th, 2019.
