Directed by:
Noah BaumbachScreenplay:
Noah BaumbachCinematography:
Robbie RyanComposer:
Randy NewmanCast:
Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Julie Hagerty, Merritt Wever, Mark O'Brien, Ayden Mayeri, Wallace Shawn, Amir Talai (more)VOD (1)
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A love story about divorce. A marriage coming apart and a family coming together. Marriage Story is a hilarious and harrowing, sharply observed, and deeply compassionate film from the acclaimed writer-director Noah Baumbach. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson deliver tour-de-force performances as Charlie, a charismatic New York theater director wedded to his work, and Nicole, an actor who is ready to change her own life. Their hopes for an amicable divorce fade as they are drawn into a system that pits them against each other and forces them to redefine their relationship and their family. Featuring bravura, finely drawn supporting turns from Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, and Laura Dern—who won an Academy Award for her performance here—as the trio of lawyers who preside over the legal battle, Marriage Story (nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture) is a work of both intimacy and scope that ultimately invokes hope amid the ruins. (Criterion)
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Reviews (13)
It's better to watch this before midnight. Even so, it’s a very well filmed and acted drama about a relationship falling apart, demonstrating the gradual disintegration of family values. In the end, I had a feeling that divorce isn’t so bad after all, that life goes on and everyone involved wins something out of it, either a lesson or a double Halloween. And that isn’t good from a moral point of view. Because, all said, everybody lost.
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Scenes of married life, or what passes for it. I didn't know whether to prepare myself for absolute heartbreak from a little boy's perspective or for a rundown of the deliberate toxicity that can be generated by two people who once loved each other more than anything in the world. And although there is at least a taste of both present, I was decently beside myself in both cases. The main action surprisingly focuses on the legal process of divorce itself and what it forces both spouses to do, regardless of their original intentions. It is a spectacle full of bewildered frowns and disappointment at the inevitable, and thanks to Adam Driver's spot-on performance, it gets under your skin. Scarlett Johansson has the kinds of lines where you can hear the rustling of paper, which is not her fault but rather Noah Baumbach's, who clearly has Charlie figured out and yet is struggling painfully to understand the other side, which he never fully does. I expected more emotional clashes, which came only in the declining (but all the more powerful) finale, and I also expected more natural transitions within the carefully constructed legal process of divorce itself. In the end, it is neither as devastating nor as disarming as I expected or hoped, yet the story is incredibly strong, unpleasant at the right moments, and in the first and last place, honest.
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In Marriage Story, the waiter says to the father of the groom, "You have to enjoy this wedding, your son only gets married two or three times in your life." With such a number, it is not surprising that divorce also comes into play. Practice confirms this in the USA, where more than half of married couples get divorced. Marriage Story has hit a sore spot in contemporary Western society and has inevitably become one of the most talked-about films of the season. Noah Baumbach incorporated his personal experiences from his breakup with his former partner Jennifer Jason Leigh into the film. Baumbach takes no sides, nor does he focus on pathological behavior or people who, due to their weaknesses and personal traits, are unable to maintain a partnership. The desire for a dual-career marriage is to blame, which is difficult to reconcile with family life in certain professions. Both parties in the divorce are reasonable and level-headed individuals who theoretically should be able to agree on an acceptable form of separation and custody of their son in the child's best interest. However, the child inevitably becomes the catalyst for a court battle that takes on increasingly absurd and tragicomic dimensions. The director demonstrates an excellent sense of detail and adeptly balances between multiple genres. You would expect this to be a tear-jerking depressive drama, but Baumbach is not afraid to use purely entertaining supporting characters and adds sarcastic jabs to intense moments. Driver and Johansson are both likable and excellent actors whom you believe in their hesitations and pain as they become estranged and inflict emotional wounds on each other. While the film didn't take me to any heavenly heights, I consider it to be significantly above-average, well-written and well-directed. Overall impression: 80%.
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A brilliantly written and just as well directed study on the inevitable consequences of the relationship of two rational and professionally ambitious people, fully credible in the dialogues and the performances, which couldn’t be any better. We are in the middle of it with the characters, we understand each of their decisions and rows, and Baumbach holds the sympathies on both sides (though as a guy, I related more to Driver), while at the same time managing to alternate the styles, the rhythm and the moods of the narration in an impressive manner, using long shots and markedly compositional editing to change the focus of attention and let the perfect actors stand out. It went by so quickly. I hope Scarlett gets the Oscar (Driver can’t beat Phoenix this year) and I'm already looking forward to another Baumbach – in The Meyerowitz Stories I was unable to relate to the characters despite their good portrayal, but in Marriage Story, I emotionally experienced every aspect. I’d love to see next time an Actor Story, about the life of Jack Nicholson. )) 90%
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A very powerful cinematic experience that I can't give a full score to just because of the state of mind, even despair, it sent me into. After all the pressure about getting married and having kids that I got during my Christmas visits – as a thirty-something, long-engaged girl – now the threat of divorce is now creeping into my thoughts. Thanks, I really needed that. Maybe I'm being a little too open about my private life, but that's largely due to this movie. It wasn’t just the dialogue and the differing attitudes of the man and woman that stirred a lot of emotions in me. It's brilliantly acted, written, and filmed, but also exhausting in its own way... 4.5 stars.
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