Marriage Story Movie Review
When award season started it was clear that Netflix was taking it seriously. The streaming giant released several movies that had Oscar bait written all over it. You could tell they wanted to be represented at the Oscars and be taken seriously by the establishment. One of the movies Netflix pushed to the forefront was Marriage Story. A more apt title for the Noah Baumbach written and directed drama would have been Divorce Story.
We are introduced to Charlie (Adam Driver), a fairly well known theater director, and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) an actor. They’ve been a couple for a number of years and have a son together. At the beginning of the movie, Charlie and Nicole have already decided that they are getting a divorce. They agree to do it without lawyers and it seems as amicable as a divorce can be. But things go sideways when Nicole heads to Los Angeles to film a television show and hires Nora (Laura Dern), a well-known divorce lawyer in LA. This sets off a series of upsetting encounters between Nicole and Charlie as they navigate through the legal process of ending their marriage.
The movie is dialogue heavy, with conversations whirring around you constantly. The couple slings vicious diatribes at each other in several scenes, illustrating that the ones you love have the power to hurt you the most severely. After a particularly heinous fight, Charlie ends up kneeling in tears and clings to Nicole. The scene is one of the most effective in the movie because of the terrific acting performances from Driver and Johansson. You can feel the hurt the two are inflicting onto each other through the screen. You are able to believe the two were happy at some point, but that time is over and all that is left is resentment and bitterness. And when those two feelings fade they’re left with exhaustion.
The excess of dialogue aids in showcasing how people talk constantly without ever actually communicating. As the movie plows through divorce proceedings it’s revealed that Nicole has long been frustrated by fitting herself into Charlie’s life and plans. She longs to be more than just Charlie’s supportive partner and aspires to make her mark in television with directing as her main objective. Charlie struggles to understand why Nicole “all of a sudden” isn’t happy with their life.
The divorce proceedings are complicated by their son Henry and where he should live; in New York City with Charlie, or in LA with Nicole. Both are dedicated and devoted parents who seem to genuinely care about their son and his well being. The proceedings continuously get ugly, with Laura Dern stealing scenes and delivering withering monologues slamming the patriarchal tendencies of marriage. Charlie rails against the unfairness of it all until it clicks that perhaps he unconsciously inflicted harm on his marriage and on Nicole.
The acting performances are the backbone of Marriage Story. Dern, Driver, and Johansson deliver stunning performances of complicated and complex emotions. In one of the last scenes of the movie, Adam Driver will shatter your heart into a million pieces. If that scene doesn’t break your heart, I don’t think you had one to begin with. At one point Nicole says, “It’s not as simple as not being in love anymore.” I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps they had communicated their feelings and their frustrations with each other better and sooner, it would have made any difference. But alas, we will always ponder the “what ifs” won’t we? Marriage Story is not as simple as two people not being in love anymore. That’s what makes it worth the watch.
Film or Movie: Film
You’ll like this film if:
1. You want a front row seat to a marriage crumbling
2. You want to cry about how fickle love is
3. You want to see exquisite acting from Dern, Driver, and Johansson
