DECEMBER 9, 2019
Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” begins with the voice of Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) extolling the many reasons why she loves his wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) — her spirit, her constant willingness to play with their 8 year-old son Henry (Azhy Robertson), even how great she is at opening jars. That’s followed by Nicole’s voice, detailing the many things she loves about Charlie — his competitive spirit, how he loves being a dad, even how he’s unafraid to cry at movies.
As we hear about these virtues, we see examples of them play out on screen in Baumbach’s slice-of-real-life images, accompanied by Randy Newman’s lovely score. These are two people who clearly adore their son and are hopelessly in love with each other.
Or, I should say, were.
It turns out that what we just heard was merely an exercise conducted by a marriage mediator to get the couple’s initial therapy session off to a positive start. The bitterness that is soon displayed between Charlie and Nicole in that mediation room seem to have no relation to the loving couple whom we had just seen. The sincere attempt to salvage the marriage goes down in flames as Nicole gets up and walks out.
Welcome to “Marriage Story.”
Now those may seem like a cute writing trick for Baumbach to flip the script to upend audience expectations right off the bat. But it does give us a crucial glimpse of just how this battling couple were once very much in love.
Nicole was a Hollywood actress who first achieved fame by flashing her boobs in a popular teen comedy. However, knowing that she needed to gain credibility as an actress, she moved to New York to work in theatre. There she met Charlie, an up-and-coming avant-garde theatre director, and the two fell deeply in love. Nicole joined his company and became a top-flight actress, while her presence elevated the company’s prominence and brought Charlie’s work to appreciative audiences and critics.
Now that their relationship seems irretrievably broken, Nicole decides to accept a lead role in a promising TV pilot and takes Henry with her to Los Angeles, while Charlie prepares his latest play (which Nicole just starred in) to move to Broadway without her. Nicole moves in with her mother Sandra (Julie Hagerty of “Airplane!”), a former TV actress and Nicole’s sister Cassie (Merritt Wever), both of whom are still crazy about Charlie.
At the recommendation of friends, Nicole hires high-powered family lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern in a scene-stealing performance) who urges her to force Charlie to get a lawyer for himself. So when Charlie arrives in L.A., he is served with divorce papers and realizes that he must quickly find legal representation or else he may lose everything.
They say write what you know, and Baumbach certainly knows this turf. One of his most famous films, 2005’s “The Squid and the Whale,” was allegedly based on his parents’ marriage, and “Marriage Story” may be inspired by Baumbach’s difficult 2010 divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. There has been a small amount of grumbling in some quarters that it’s difficult for some audiences to identify with the personal problems of rich white people, but Baumbach writes with such universality that I would argue that it’s difficult for an audience not to find something here with which to identify.
The other great argument burning up Film Twitter is whether Baumbach’s script favors Charlie over Nicole. It can be argued that if the film is indeed influenced by Baumbach’s own life, and the structure of the film’s second half focuses on Charlie’s “What am I going to do now?” dilemma more than Nicole’s story. Still, he gives Nicole several startlingly effective moments, particularly in a lengthy monologue as she explains to her new lawyer just what it was that turned their relationship sour. It’s heartbreaking.
Johansson’s Nicole is arguably the best work the actress has done in film in recent memory as a young wife sees her hopes of lasting love fade as an opportunity to do what she has always wanted to do, with Johannsson absolutely nailing every emotional twist and turn that Nicole must weather. Dern is a hoot as the legal shark Nora, though fans of “Big Little Lies” may see some elements here of her Emmy-winning performance as Renata. Alan Alda and Ray Liotta are terrific as lawyers vying for Charlie’s business, and it’s so wonderful to see Julie Hagerty back in action as Nicole’s ditsy mom.
But the performance of the film really is Adam Driver’s as Charlie. Here you have a man who was once deeply in love but completely clueless that his selfishness is slowly pushing away the love of his life. And when he finally comes to that realization, it comes far too late to stop the events that have been put into motion. At least he knows that Henry loves him — for now — and it’s that fear of losing his son’s love that keeps Charlie on his new track of unselfishness. Driver mines all of the complexity that Charlie presents to everyone around him — in fact, whenever he’s onscreen, I wondered what the actor was going to do next. That, to me, is a sign of a memorable performance.
I will warn those folks who you are going through or have just been through a break-up that “Marriage Story” might be a difficult film to experience. How realistically raw that Baumbach makes the confrontations between husband and wife can be tough to watch. But if you look carefully, there may be a small glimmer of hope to hold onto.
“Marriage Story” is currently playing in limited release and is available at home on Netflix.
GRADE: A-
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