'Marriage Story' is the year's best movie
Perhaps if every couple could watch their story back again they would better understand their own sparks and collisions, the things done on purpose, the things that just sort of happened. Perhaps they would see the parts of themselves that latched onto each other without effort and the pieces that only fit after years of recognition and adjustment. They might see their relationship as remarkably complicated and also rather simple. Either they communicate well, or they do not.
Married, single or somewhere in between, anyone would struggle to find a more startling, complex, funny, heartbreaking deconstruction of couplehood as the elaborate blending of two lives, and the dynamics that maintain or sever, than “Marriage Story.” Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, this tragic comedy is well aware of the irony in a divorce proceeding that requires compromise and agreement between two people who already have decided that compromise and agreement are not possible.
Literally and figuratively, Charlie (Adam Driver) is a director; Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) is an actress. That worked for a while, with her moving on from an unhappy engagement into the creative orbit of someone she admired and him thrilled to have a muse as the anchor of his New York theater company. Now, though, their union has rotted in ways even the couple cannot quite define. Explaining herself to her attorney, Nora (Laura Dern), Nicole says that it would be strange if Charlie turned to her and said, “What do you want to do today?” She describes him as self-centered and unsupportive and mentions infidelity as a side note, the symptom rather than the disease. (Charlie later comments that Nicole should be upset not that he slept with another woman but that he had a laugh with her.) Where she once felt flattered, she is now smothered.
The movie then observes two people who think they want the same things in divorce and can keep things civil and easy exploding into anger and confusion. They are driven by lawyers but also by their inability to reconcile a personality gap that existed long before the couple ever met. Charlie neglects to prioritize the needs of others; Nicole struggles to crystallize and articulate what she wants. At various moments, in kindnesses like Nicole knowing what Charlie should order for lunch better than he does or him going to her place to help when her power goes out, there may seem to be an intimate connection left to save. Yet much of “Marriage Story” hinges on two people acclimating themselves to a conclusion that has already been reached. That is very much complicated by the existence of their 8-year-old son Henry (Azhy Robertson) and the basic question of where he will live. Is this a New York-based family, as they always have been and Charlie always believed they would be, or a Los Angeles-based one, now that Nicole is back in her hometown working on a TV show, her first Charlie-less project in years?
These two people are attractive, successful and talented, and their relationship derives from a connection that is both physical and intellectual. Yet that is all surface. Baumbach’s work has long focused on the idealization that breaks down as people know each other better, and what happens after that. In “The Squid and the Whale,” Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) worships his novelist father (Jeff Daniels) until seeing through to the reality of the selfish, pompous man he really is. In “While We’re Young,” Josh (Ben Stiller) fawns over his new, younger friends (Driver, Amanda Seyfried) until he discovers the posturing and narcissism beneath their faux-hipness. These discoveries are not even entirely based in people, either. In “Frances Ha,” Frances (Greta Gerwig) departs for a poorly conceived Paris vacation after learning she can stay in a place owned by a friend of a friend, only to discover that a few days alone sometimes just feel lonely and aimless, no matter where they happen.
However, where some of Baumbach’s work, particularly “The Squid and the Whale” and “Margot at the Wedding,” has processed familial relationships through acidity and bitterness, “Marriage Story” finds him at his most generous and curious about the multi-faceted nature of people and the fluid connection of partnership. In a tremendous, gorgeously edited opening sequence, he allows viewers to hear what Charlie and Nicole write when a therapist (Robert Smigel) asks them to identify what they love about each other. Though Nicole refuses to read hers (Charlie would but Nicole storms out before he can, feeling that the two men are teaming up against her), both individuals capture a vivid document of a person they know incredibly well, with much to adore and some, enough, to annoy. She knows how to help and handle him but also never closes cabinets or drinks the tea she makes. He is self-sufficient and determined but also disappears into his own world. Summarized this way, the complaints seem minor, less so when they are felt. Their letters paint them as full, real people, and the images, including a series of shots in which Charlie and Henry are in Henry’s bed, then Charlie is on the floor, then Henry joins him on the floor, then Charlie goes into the bed, then Henry joins Charlie back in the bed, register with the truth that no one actually gets to see about other people’s lives. This is to say nothing of the frequent hilarity in lines like “He became a genius during the course of the marriage” (when Nora argues in court why Nicole should get money from Charlie’s MacArthur Genius grant) and “Why is there always a flirty grip?” (as Nicole preps for her new show).
In fact, the film is loaded with remarkable moments, both in bigger sequences (like Driver singing “Being Alive” from Steven Sondheim’s “Company”) and smaller exchanges (like the single take of Nicole rehearsing her answers about her parenting for court). The movie could not reach its heights without these performances; Johansson is perfect as a person figuring out how to redefine herself, and Driver, arguably asked to do even more, is nothing short of classic: likable yet selfish, engaged but naive, doting but distant. Acting rarely deserves to be called masterful, but this is one of those times. The result is a film worth rewatching to each time better clarify why this is happening to these people, if anything might have been different and what would have had to happen and when to foster a different outcome.
It goes without saying that society in 2019 is not especially well-equipped to handle work of this emotional sophistication. Online discourse quickly devolved into Team Charlie vs. Team Nicole despite being entirely disconnected from the film’s point about how much everyone loses if the goal is to win. People were very eager to demonize the lawyers (Charlie’s version of Nora is played by Ray Liotta; a less competent but kinder one is played by Alan Alda) without recognizing the film’s understanding of the role each person plays and how they are informed by their own experience and agenda. And the instantly unforgettable scene in which Charlie and Nicole’s argument escalates to the point of Charlie screaming something that horrifies and shatters him became meme-ified before anyone even finished composing themselves after the fight’s remarkable, exhausting, deeply sad conclusion. When social media and online dating and every other cause of emotional distance prevents the processing of hard feelings and complicated ideas, it is anyone’s guess how many people stay up to talk about “Marriage Story” after it finishes streaming on Netflix, or how many just let the next movie autoplay as soon as possible.
What is certain is that this is a textured portrait sure to join films like “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “A Separation” and “Before Midnight” on the list of movies people return to when they think about stories of divorce and relationships in turmoil. What a confident, wise choice that Baumbach never flashes back to the happy times. Those simply live within flawed individuals who at one point felt nothing could ever go wrong and later, in the angriest moments, feel nothing will ever be good again. Neither emotion is true. This marvelous, insightful film sees everything in a relationship as part of a larger piece, subject to change and hinge on the past, present and future all at once.
The first shot of the movie finds Nicole, on stage, stepping out of the shadows and into the light. She is later nominated for an Emmy for directing her show, a role she never got to play when Charlie was around. Maybe he prevented it, and maybe she could have looked to direct something else. Baumbach, layering insights about parenthood and the patriarchy, sees these events merely as one example of the way two people failed to grow together, pretending they were on the same team but ultimately not. He also explores this through Halloween costumes, as dressing up comes into play in the movie not once but twice. First Charlie is the Invisible Man; later he is a ghost. “Marriage Story” is a movie about two people who do not know how to be seen at the same time dealing with how long it took them to realize they could not fix that. There is deep loss in that mistake, great difficulty in the unraveling and poetry in finding the peace to move on.
A
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