Marriage Story: All-around showcase of great acting, takes no sides in its tender treatment of a break-up
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A+
Marriage Story, writer/director Noah Baumbach’s thoughtful, insightful and superb new movie, could have rightly been called Divorce Story.
The Netflix-bound film – an all-around showcase of fine acting - centers around a New York-based couple Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson). He’s a talented theatre director with his own company. She’s an actress, who was once a TV star and stepped away from it - or at least put things on pause to work with Charlie’s theatre company and raise their young son, Henry (Azhy Robertson).
Scarjo and Adam Driver are a Hollywood actress and theatre producer about to play Taps on their marriage
The two are in mediation and seem to be headed for a separation and perhaps divorce, but are trying to manage it without lawyers. There are hard feelings there, an accumulation of hurts on one side, and a mix of guilt, hurt and bewilderment on the other.
The question of whether this marriage can even be saved hangs in the air. But life is going forward at full speed and the rift is being managed as best as possible. Charlie has a new production to get on stage and he’s focused there. In the meantime, Nicole has had an offer to do a pilot for a TV show in her home town of Los Angeles, which means she’ll step away from the play.
Her mom (Julie Hagerty) and sister (Merritt Wever) live there and so she’ll stay with them, and Henry will get to hang out with his cousins. Charlie’s understanding is they’ll be back when the pilot is done. They’re a “New York” family, after all.
In L.A. and on her own Nicole has time to process. And in casual conversation, when one of the producers hears that Nicole is separated, she gives her the name of the lawyer who did her divorce. That would be Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern), a shark among sharks.
And when Charlie comes for his first visit, he’s greeted warmly and sincerely by Nicole and the in-laws who truly love him, and is then is completely taken off guard when he’s served divorce papers, discovers that he’s not invited to stay with the family, and advised to get a lawyer for himself.
Marriage Story played at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, where it was the runner up for the Grolsch People’s Choice Award. And the word trickling out of the early screenings was all about the incredible performances of its leads. It was no exaggeration. Driver and Johansson each do exquisite work here.
Driver has been moving from strength to strength and even measured against his best work, this is a powerful performance. And with this role, it’s evident that Johansson has matured as an actor - thoughtful and willing to go deep. But, then, everywhere you look in this movie, there are actors doing award-worthy work. Both actors who play Charlie’s lawyers, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta, the softy and the shark respectively, are wonderful in their roles.
The credit goes to writer/director Noah Baumbach, who manages quite an incredible balancing act here.
Baumbach makes brainy, good natured movies with just enough of a bite to make them interesting, about people who are struggling with deep issues of identity: For instance, a family dealing with divorce and separation, (The Squid and the Whale); an insecure documentary maker trying to hold on to his youth, rather than embrace his maturity, (While We’re Young); or an artistic eccentric young woman looking for a way to be in the world that’s true to who she is, (Frances Ha).
In these movies, he’s gone for the wry and comedic, getting at his characters’ stories through their quirks and neuroses. He uses humour as a way to to observe the characters from a distance, rather than up close.
In that way, Marriage Story is a departure for him. It has comedy and even quirkiness in some of the ancillary characters (like Wallace Shawn doing a great Wallace Shawn), and the pacing. Marriage Story is also more serious and more intimate than anything he’s done before.
What makes Marriage Story so profound and affecting is its tenderness. Although there are points where one character’s choices puts the other into serious difficulty, Baumbach doesn’t demonize Charlie or Nicole, and never ever asks us to judge either of them.
Things happen that can’t be quickly or easily processed. The center cannot hold for these two long enough to set a break-up in motion. Once separated, they’re satellites orbiting around each other, held in place by the gravity of their love for their son and, perhaps even for each other.
Marriage Story. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Merritt Wever. Opens at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, Friday, November 22.