Marriage Story (2019)

Directed by: Noah Baumbach | 136 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Azhy Robertson, Laura Dern, Julie Hagerty, Merrit Wever, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Wallace Shawn, Mickey Sumner, Matthew Shear, Brooke Bloom, Hannah Dunne, Roslyn Ruff, Robert Smigel

Hollywood has embraced the traditional, idealistic view of marriage for years. From Europe, films in which more realistic ideas floated to the surface, for example by Ingmar Bergman and his ‘Scenes from a Marriage’ (1973), based on his own experiences with the institution of marriage. Only with the revolutionary divorce drama ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ (1979) changed the way in which marriage was portrayed in Hollywood, albeit very slowly. In that film we also saw the father figure in a different role for the first time. When Joanna, played by Meryl Streep, leaves her family overnight, Ted (Dustin Hoffman, whose own divorce the story is partly based on) is forced to care for his infant son on his own; something he barely did at the time. And when you say movies about relationships, you can’t ignore Woody Allen. The New Yorker has built his entire body of work on the genre, working his own divorce from Mia Farrow in ‘Husbands and Wives’ (1992) and ‘Annie Hall’ (1977) dealt with his relationship with Diane Keaton. Noah Baumbach also likes to make films about his own experiences with the phenomenon of marriage. While his debut film ‘The Squid and the Whale’ (2005) still revolved around his parents’ relationship troubles, he processed his own divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh into ‘Marriage Story’ (2019), a special made for Netflix in which lead actors Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson play the tiles of the roof.

Initially Baumbach misleads us; at the beginning of the film, we hear Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) talking about each other beautiful, characteristic character traits – large and small. For example, she is a very good listener and knows exactly what presents to give, and he dresses surprisingly well for a man and is a born father. But we are soon convinced: they only wrote that list of positives about each other because their mediator asked them to. Nicole then refuses to read her letter aloud. She doesn’t feel like trying to save something that can no longer be saved. Where did it go wrong? Charlie and Nicole met about ten years ago in New York. He was and still is a successful theater director and producer, she had a promising acting career in Hollywood but stuck in New York after meeting Charlie. There she became his muse and a star on Broadway. They also had a son together, Henry (Azhy Robertson), who is now eight years old. In recent years, frustration has grown, especially with Nicole, who feels she has missed out on her own career. She decides to go to an audition in Los Angeles and takes Henry with her. Once there, she hires the savvy feminist lawyer Nora Fanshaw (lovely role by Laura Dern) because she wants to get rid of Charlie. If he wants to keep seeing his kid, he too will have to find a lawyer in LA. Although both want to handle the divorce as neatly as possible, also because of Henry, the intervention of the lawyers turns out to make the confrontations more and more uncomfortable.

In the conversations with her lawyer, her somewhat strange mother (Julie Hagerty) and her sister (great role by Merritt Wever) we learn why Nicole no longer wants to continue with Charlie. She feels that her own personality, ambitions and ideas have been swallowed up by his. In addition, the plan was to move to her beloved LA after some time, so that she would also have the time and space to work on her career. Baumbach shows Johansson’s monologue (rarely better than here) in a few long takes, letting the camera get closer and closer to her. We see every trace of emotion on her face. She remembers better times with melancholy, but at the same time she feels shame and disappointment in herself because she is unable to make her marriage a success. She is full of contradictions, because on the one hand she still longs for Charlie, but on the other hand she thinks it’s time for her. Adam Driver is possibly even stronger in his role as Charlie, a man who unknowingly has a suffocating effect on his wife. It would have been easy if he were a haughty narcissist or a black sheep so you could take sides. But Charlie is an amiable and honest person and a loving father. Both he and Nicole have their flaws, their quirks, but that’s what makes these very human characters. They both want the smoothest landing possible, but are steered by the people around them (alongside Dern, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta also appear as two lawyers, each with their own approach) in a direction they never asked for. He sees life as he knew it crumble and towards the end of the film literally begs for help and support, in his crushing rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s “Being Alive”. Even though the story takes place in an intellectual milieu that is far from their bed for most, the carefully developed characters make Nicole and Charlie’s worries universal and recognizable.

Baumbach pushes his actors to great heights. Verbal fireworks occur in a scene in which an altercation culminates in an unparalleled game of mud-throwing, with mutual recriminations. The unreasonableness is rampant and as a viewer we are dragged into it until tears run down our cheeks. That savage volcanic eruption also underlines how close hate and love are. Because the love has not completely gone yet, we see in small, sweet gestures and scenes that Baumbach also hid in his film: Nicole cutting Charlie’s hair, ordering for him in a restaurant when he can’t make a choice again and his loose laces for him strictly for example. There is also room for much-needed (mild) humor, including in the chaos surrounding the handing over of the summons to Charlie, which includes a star role for Weaver, and the uneasy visit of an adamant social worker (Martha Kelly) in the temporary Californian home of a desperate and insecure Charlie. What is particularly striking in the camera work is how Baumbach manages to capture the growing physical distance between the two (former) spouses in the wider shots, in addition to the pure emotions in their faces and body language in the close-ups. The director is firmly in control, knows exactly what he wants to portray without putting too much emphasis on it. In addition, he makes Driver and Johansson shine like never before. He does not take sides and is both rock hard and forgiving towards both: where two quarrels are two to blame. By assigning the lawyers a crucial role, Baumbach underlines once again what kind of cold and hardened society it is in which we have ended up.

‘Marriage Story’ moves, chafes, bites and even makes us smile now and then, because the film shows us in detail the emotional chaos we end up in when love as we know it slowly disappears from our lives. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson jump off the screen: one minute they look combative, the next vulnerable and small. Both are deservedly nominated for Golden Globes (just like Dern, Baumbach, composer Randy Newman and the film itself) and don’t be surprised if they also score high at the Oscars!