Skip to main content

The Tragic, Tender Resonance of Marriage Story


Divorce is not a topic you’ll see in many movies. Yet nearly fifty per cent of all marriages end in divorce –it’s something that impacts a lot of peoples’ lives deeply, but rarely shows up in film because it isn’t comforting. Nobody likes the divorce process; it comes with so much anger and hurt and misery. If you buy into the idea of movies as escapism, as fantasy, then it’s the last thing you want to see represented therein. Marriage Story, the latest film from Noah Baumbach, is a film about a divorce, about a couple trying to civilly sort out their separation and custody of their child amidst diverging careers on opposite coasts, and their failures to do so. That anger and hurt and misery is all on display it’s true, but so is an inordinate amount of compassion and humanity as the film charts the attempts of Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), a former teen star turned serious actress, and Charlie (Adam Driver), an off-Broadway theatre director, to reorient their lives, maintain a degree of normalcy, and deal with the emotional fallout of their relationship as they negotiate the guardianship of their young son Henry (Azhy Robertson).
It’s not the first time Baumbach has made a movie about divorce of course, The Squid and the Whale having been based on the dissolution of his own parents’ marriage. That film however took the childrens’ point of view while this one is squarely focussed on the parents’ –now from the vantage point of Baumbach’s own divorce. And that experience appears to be what really gives the film its astute empathy for both characters, and even though it seems to favour one, is very fair on the feelings and desires of the other. It’s a beautifully written movie, from the scenes early on that give insight into the sweeter, loving sides of the marriage to its articulations of why they left each other and ultimately the inflamed passions of their custody battle. Obviously written with a desire to come across authentically, what gives Marriage Story an added resonance is how the script utilizes the tedium and draining nature of the process of divorce to the advantage of illustrating more Nicole and Charlie’s emotional conflict. It’s exceptionally raw and bitter, Baumbach at one point scripting perhaps the greatest spousal argument scene since Before Midnight, but it’s also strangely sombre and tragic: in how the movie opens with a portrait of love and tenderness that echoes throughout the story, how it concentrates on the little nuances in Charlie’s relationship with Henry -not ever as close as he wants it to be, and how as selfish and stubborn as he is, Charlie is never coded the “bad guy”, as is often the case in such stories.
Part of this comes down to Adam Driver, now on his fourth collaboration with Baumbach, delivering perhaps his best performance yet. His calm and perceptively indifferent demeanour mask a deep melancholy and a fear of loss that Driver accentuates through a simple line delivery or detail of body language otherwise difficult to keep organic. Charlie’s every frustration is keenly felt, his resistance to admit defeat is understood, and his attachment to his work and company, what keeps him from making a commitment of moving to L.A. where Nicole must put down roots, is very reasonable. The fact he’s likeable and sympathetic at all is impressive given the distress he ignorantly put Nicole through, that he can be a heartbreaking presence in a situation he’s arguably responsible for is a miracle. Opposite Driver and giving an equally phenomenal performance is Scarlett Johansson in her most grounded role in a long time, despite playing a promising TV star. Nicole is in some ways the easier part of the two given how her career ambition and how it’s often neutered by Charlie is such a supportable side to be on from the get-go, and yet Johansson succeeds at making her a relatable, nuanced figure whose dreams of returning to L.A. and getting the opportunity to direct (something that isn’t brought up enough in the interactions between the former couple) are not only valid, but feel achingly personal. You’re brought into the complex spectrum of her emotions through a roughly five minute monologue delivered in a single take of her relating the fluctuations of her relationship with Charlie that is one of the best pieces of acting I’ve seen all year. Those complexities are just beneath the surface of Nicole throughout the film: she doesn’t entirely know how to feel about Charlie and it’s both engaging and subtly devastating.
Because one thing the movie makes crystal clear is that it wouldn’t have been unfeasible for Nicole and Charlie to make their marriage work. If they had made a few more concessions, if Charlie had spent more time bonding with Henry, if they had visited L.A. and Nicole’s family there more often, if they had at least talked more about their feelings. You don’t leave the film wanting them to get back together (by the end that bridge is thoroughly burned), but rather contemplating as they do with curiosity and pathos what might have been.
Despite such bleakness though, the movie has more colours to it. The film is part comedy after all, Baumbach as usual infusing the dialogue with rich and clever, yet fairly natural humour. There are a couple great comic scenes between Nicole and her family, an eccentric and Charlie-loving mother played by Julie Hagerty, and an anxious sister played by Merritt Weaver. Charlie too has a gang of idiosyncratic sidekicks in his theatre group led by an always wonderful Wallace Shawn, who I’m convinced is playing himself. A sequence near the climax involving a deadpan custody evaluator played by Martha Kelly is incredibly funny, and there’s even a great degree of comedy to the awkwardness in Nicole and Charlie’s new relationship that offsets the dramatic and emotional subject matter. As with everything in the film, there’s special care with how the comic relief is written. I’d be remiss too not to mention a great Laura Dern, as Nicole’s extremely competent but subtly aggressive lawyer, and a still remarkable Alan Alda as Charlie’s soft and sensible one –replacing a crass and dirty Ray Liotta whom he initially turns to.
Marriage Story is Baumbach’s best movie since Frances Ha, being for divorcing artists in their thirties what that film was for aspiring artists in their twenties. It’s a gut-punch of a slew of emotions that you can’t quite reconcile by the end, much like Nicole and Charlie, but also a stirringly bold and intimately bittersweet story of two people who loved each other once, trying to move forward in a world where they don’t.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Strange History of the American Spoof Movie

Parody movies have been around for a lot longer than we tend to think of them. Even from the earliest days of Hollywood there were movies meant to satirize a particular subject or genre. In the silent era, Buster Keaton was responsible for a few. And in the early sound era, almost as soon as the monster pictures took off did you see comic versions of them -Abbott and Costello hosting a few. But parody movies tended to be subtle for most of cinema history, or parody came in conjunction with another goal of the comedy. It really wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that it took off and became popularly understood. And there is perhaps a line to be drawn to the counterculture comedy explosion that began in the 1970s through avenues like  Saturday Night Live , which frequently parodied from even its earliest years popular movies and cultural properties of the time. But that is still a way’s back. To my generation though, ‘parody movie’ is perhaps a less known term than the more blunt ‘s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
1 comment
Read more

Back to the Feature: New York, New York (1977)

New York, New York  is a two hour forty minute musical movie largely about a toxic relationship and I understand why it was Martin Scorsese’s first big flop. Some have blamed its poor reception on the kind of movie it was, of a style and tone Scorsese wasn’t known for, but I find that hard to believe. Even after only five films, he’d proven himself an extremely versatile director, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore  found an audience. Sure this jazz musical love letter to New York City was following up Taxi Driver and its’ far more cynical take on the city, but then it’s also ‘from the director of Taxi Driver ’ which itself was a big hit. Was it a matter of public appetite for musicals, or mere word of mouth and early critical reception that dissuaded viewers? Irrespective of that, I was stunned to discover this movie was the origin of the titular song, which I’d assumed was much older (it’s definitely got the sound of something that might have come out of the Jazz sce...
Post a Comment
Read more