Marriage Story-The Feel Good Rom-Com of The Year!
With an ironic title meant to be humorously misleading, Noah Baumbach crafts a painfully accurate tale of the torment couples go through during a divorce. Most breakups have two sides to the story. Whose end you string towards is entirely up to the viewer's subjectivity. Baumbach points fingers in both directions. Gender plays a significant role in who the audience will agree is in the wrong. What matters in the end, however, is the child torn between both parties. The one who will become the most affected, the most traumatized, becomes an afterthought amongst frivolous bickering between the parents.
Charlie (Adam Driver) is a once hugely successful playwriter who now owns a theatre company. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) is a former actress who was famous for playing a party girl in a teenaged frat comedy. Where both could have seen great success, they had to halt everything due to the birth of their child Henry (Azhy Robertson). With the workings of a happy working family ready to settle down, things don't quite work out that way. They are desperately trying to avoid conflict through a quiet separation, but of course, it all ends in agony. Noah Baumbach is no stranger to examining annulment in his films. The semi-autobiographical "The Squid and The Whale" deals with the divorce of two parents and the child stuck in the middle of all of it. Where "The Squid and The Whale" focussed on everyone, "Marriage Story" is finer tuned, intentionally leaving the child in the background. Most of us have witnessed couples separating or at least know of some unsightly splits. In most of those cases, we get wrapped up in what he or she did. Every grotesque detail of Charlie and Nicole's dissolution becomes weaponized in the courts when neither had the intention of their detachment to become an expensive, emotional, complicated, legal matter. These things happen, however. There's nothing we can do to stop it as faith rears its hideous head towards us.
The emotional weight of the film can be overwhelming yet is thankfully lifted through the script's use of humor. The jokes could have sunk the movie by desperately attempting to make the crowd laugh at inopportune moments. Luckily it's carefully placed enough where it's relieving instead of distracting with the exception of the divorce papers scene that felt like something that was lifted straight out of an episode of "The Office". The cinematography is appropriately shot on 35mm, the grain of celluloid outlines the gritty, dirty nature of a divorce juxtaposing an overly clean image you'd typically receive on digital. Unfortunately, most theatres, let alone the December 6 release of the picture on Netflix, will not have that aspect be visible for the majority of its viewers. As matters get worse between our two protagonists, the production design becomes more minimalistic. Where the frame is covered with objects to avoid a flat image, as films are supposed to do, Baumbach deliberately commits the cardinal sin of filming his subjects in rooms with white walls, making us feel trapped. To go into more depth, it felt like Baumbach used the minimalism in his aesthetic to display how lawyers simplistically view the emotional complexity of a divorce to push forward their agendas so they can win their cases. Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) is defending Nicole. Nora pushes her philosophy onto Nicole unexpectedly, ranting about how pig-headed men have always ruled the world, and it's time for the women to fight back. Jay (Ray Liotta) is not particularly fond of woman viewing them as manipulative, cold-hearted gold diggers. Everything is as simple as simple can be, and the focus on such flat environments shows Charlie and Nicole's good intentions whisked away within a dreary world that could care less about what they want.
"Marriage Story" is the quintessential Oscar clip film. Adam Driver is a powerhouse. Within one scene, he reaches every single range of emotion; one could muster. Driver goes from calm to rage to despair in a matter of five minutes. When he gets nominated for Best Actor, which God willing he better, this will be the clip the Academy will throw on the screen, guaranteed. Johansson, on the other hand, is serviceable. She isn't bad but not as nearly as dynamic as Driver, who vastly overshadows her. Luckily Mr. Driver's character is the film's central point of focus, carrying a majority of the story's weight. To help with the load is a strong supporting cast. Laura Dern is charmingly distracting by playing the loving flower power type of gal who can bite you like a snake at a moment's notice without losing her smile. Ray Liotta does his typical tough-guy routine coupled with the tenacity of a streetfight lawyer. Alan Alda is the third Lawyer of the film, or really, Charlie's first Lawyer, who's vastly unqualified in his field then subsequently fired. He's the type of L.A. resident who's spent far too many decades under the sun. There are various other supporting performances from Julie Hagerty and a scene with Merritt Wever that's particularly humorous and tense at the same time.
"Marriage Story" is being hailed as a masterpiece by some film critics. I can't give it that accolade as I first off don't believe in the usage of that term until after a filmmaker has passed and second off, for all the film gets right, it's not unfamiliar groundbreaking territory. Films have explored the issues of "Marriage Story" before with various scenes for which Noah Baumbach lifts all the familiar tropes from. Baumbach just happened to put some silkier oil in the wheel of failed relationship movies instead of reinventing it as many would make you believe. With that said, yes, this is indeed one of the best pictures of the year, and an exact step up in Baumbach's work. Just don't take a date to this film. It's better to take a date to any movie but this one. If you know someone who enjoys great storytelling and isn't afraid to feel heartbroken by the end, then this is the perfect movie to take that friend to.
**** out of ****
