Marriage Story

"It's All About You" (But, It Can't Be About Everybody Simultaneously)
or
"You don't want to be married...not really." "But, I didn't want this."

Noah Baumbach's new film Marriage Story begins with opening arguments, like a trial, but with all the best intentions. Nicole Barber (Scarlett Johansson) in voice-over talks about the things she admires about her husband Charlie (Adam Driver). Never mind what the details are, they're spelled out on camera as she goes over them. Then, it's Charlie's turn. And as with hers, it's a glowing review of what impresses and endears Nicole to him. It may not BE them in reality, but it's what the other observes, retains, and endears that person to them.

In which case, it's just as much about the writer as it is the subject.

What those opening minutes is about is not opening arguments, it's therapy. Charlie and Nicole are in couples' therapy, trying to fix their marriage...or "re-adjust" it might be the better term. And when things have become strained—strained enough to go to couples' therapy—it's always a good exercise to do that "What I like about you" essay in order to try and re-ignite the relationship pilot-light that's been doused by coaxing the parties to recall why they got together in the first place. It's a history exercise while ignoring the history that has occurred since. Anyway, it's a good exercise for a counselor to try, especially if the pair are easily susceptible to reconciliation by just remembering what they've forgotten.

It doesn't work so well for Nicole and Charlie—they don't even read their essays. And Nicole is in such a state of agitated self-doubt, she doesn't think that what she's written is good enough. That's what she says, anyway. Maybe she thinks it's pointless to read it. Charlie, on the other hand, would be more than happy to read his—if Nicole will read hers. Maybe we should mention that Nicole is an actress and Charlie is a director. Both live in New York now and have for some time. Charlie moved there to pursue his theater ambitions. Nicole had made a splash in a teen movie and had moved to New York to pursue acting challenges and it's there where the two met, formed a theater company, and married and had one child, a boy, Henry (Azhy Robertson).

Charlie just won a MacArthur grant and Nicole has a chance for a role on a sci-fi series that shooting on the West Coast. Charlie's supportive (and all), but he won't be going with her because the little play she was starring in and Charlie directed is on a track to go to Broadway (BROAD-WAY!) and he kinda doesn't understand why she would leave the cast and go do that sci-fi thing. But, who knows if the pilot will get picked up so, sure, he's "okay" with it. "Go do your little space-pilot."

"What's this?" "You have been served."

But, what to do with Henry? Nicole's family is back there, so that's a slam-dunk. But, Charlie's doing all this prep for Broadway and trying to keep the company together, and it's a little inconvenient to go schlepping across the country to see his own kid.

So, are you starting to see where this is heading? Are you starting to realize why they were in couple's therapy at the beginning of the movie, even BEFORE we knew there were these issues? 

It becomes apparent that, when the pair aren't together, that Charlie is a bit clueless about what's going on and how deeply felt Nicole's alienation is, so when he goes out to Los Angeles and everybody from Nicole's family is all-smiles and glad to see him, he is caught flat-footed when he's served with divorce papers instead of a family meal. Then, the fine details begin to appear. The divorce is being done in L.A.—it was filed there, Nicole is residing there and that's where her attorney is—so Charlie, working in New York, has to travel to Los Angeles for it. It also means that if he wants custody—or even visitation rights—of his child, he must establish a residence in Los Angeles. As someone points out, if the kid's best interest is in mind, why is all the money for the kid's education being wasted for appearances sake?

The first lawyer Charlie consults (Ray Liotta) has a good reputation of being a bad-ass attorney and, resultingly, a high retainer and their first interaction does not go well—the attorney is already in attack mode and Charlie hasn't quite gotten there yet as it's all pretty new to him. It also seems that the way Charlie has lived his life has been completely counter to how the law system will favorable grant him a consideration of custody. 

He switches tactics then, going with a more folksy lawyer (Alan Alda), who is more human but less effectual, has the warm-fuzzies and keeps it on a more human level and (frankly) is a last resort to meet a filing deadline, which could have lost him custody—or any visitation time, even if he'd been Mother Theresa.

Nicole, on the other side of the judicial scales, has hired Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) who has a warm, sympathetic side and a competitive side, wanting the best outcome for her clients, but one also gets the impression it's all about her. Let's be fair; all the lawyers have that and how they play up the customer service aspect is based on their personalities. Like psychiatrists, one has to find the right fit, and that may take many tries. But one thing is consistent: the laws are made to benefit lawyers, not real human beings. They do their dance, wear their outfits, and rely on the least common denominator, or the people who throw up their hands in frustration at the slightest complication for the system to deal with its clutter. The legal system is a jungle and its survival of the fittest, or the most stubborn, or the ones with the most money.

The devil is in the details and Baumbach's meticulous piling-on of the roadblocks and legal hoops makes the compelling case that the charitably nimble are the one best able to adapt of the species. He's aided and abetted by extraordinary performances throughout, but chief among them being his leads, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. Talk about nimble: Driver has always been good—he's a subtle chameleon—but Johansson is so good that she is frequently taken for granted (Hmmm...). Both actors give a master-class in making the mundane interesting and Baumbach's unforgiving camera would pick up any false note that might flicker across a face. There's no danger of that with this cast, with Liotta being the most theatrical, Dern being the most calculating and Johansson and Driver being the most fiercely submerged in their parts.

Any movie is reflected and consumed by what the viewer brings to it, whatever life experience and prejudices they kaleidoscope it through. During the watching of it, I kept wondering if Baumbach's sympathies were with Charlie than Nicole (he's not—Charlie's the most screwed up of the couple and has the most territory to change in the plot) and whether some reviewer is going to dismiss it as an irrelevancy and another film about the troubles of the White-Privileged. Sorry, but the cast of Parasite could play this movie, and it would be just as pointed with David Oyelowo and Taraji P. Henson top-lining it. I'd love to see that movie. But, this is superb just as it is.

My favorite shot of the film—it's a last-minute visual pun, but also
shows that Driver's Charlie has turned a corner.

I've never flat-out loved a film of Baumbach's before, although I know lots of people who've regarded well The Squid and the Whale (which I'll have to revisit—I'll become a big fan of Jeff Daniels in the last year)or Margot at the Wedding or Greenberg (which I'll re-post reviews of next week)—after seeing those three, I'd passed on Baumbach's work ever since (with the exception of his documentary about Brian DePalma because...well...DePalma), but I'm attempting to get through The Meyerowitz Stories (it's tough) and I suppose Frances Ha is a "must." But, frankly, Marriage Story is such a revelation and engaged me far more than any of his films have.  

In fact, it is hard for me to decide which is the best film of the year—this one or Greta Gerwig's Little Women. But, given that the two are a couple, and the film's couldn't be more different from each other, I'll pass on deciding which one is the better. I'd hate to come between the alliance of two such extraordinary film makers.

Even if their next work is a collaboration, Barbie, about (yes) a Barbie doll that wants to escape her Malibu Dreamhouse existence for life in the real world.