I was mesmerized by this movie. The acting was superb, especially Driver. He can even sing ok. The letters they wrote to read aloud, though they never did, was pivotal in the optimism.
1
Acting and writing were great, there was little attention to prioritizing the child. Each parent is totally self involved and putting their needs first, then trying to manipulate the situation to benefit him. Sad.
4
@A And yet, very realistic for anyone who was a child of a messed up marriage (I do wonder how many are not).
@Brazilianheat I wasn't but it was decades ago in an immersive Catholic childhood. I had no friends or classmates who were children of divorce. Prehistoric, I know.
1
@Geraldine Conrad Actually, my parents never got divorced although I wished they had. And we were also a Catholic family, which has never meant anything in terms of healthy marriages, only that people felt a stronger social pressure to stay together. The Catholic Church is not known for being a bastion for truth and against hypocrisy.
1
Looking very much forward to finally watching this tonight UNLESS Adam Sandler‘s contribution is real not a typo. Did the reviewer really mistake Driver for Sandler or should i make different plans? Strange that not 1 of 55 comments has noted this yet.
1
@Dr. Michael Becker He's talking about different Baumbach movies. Read the review again Dr. B.
3
@Dr. Michael Becker, read the article! Adam Sandler was in “The Meyerowitz Stories,” not “Marriage Story.” No one commented on that because it is correct.
1
Noted. Thanks for pointing this out. Guess i watch „The Meyerowitz Stories“ next.
1
I thought that the scene between Nicole and Charlie in the apartment when they had a terrific fight and Charlie dropped to his knees, crying, was a very well-acted, very powerful scene. However, my one complaint about this movie is it didn't really show how severely a young child could be emotionally impacted by his or her parents' divorce. As far as I'm concerned, too many parents put their own personal 'fulfillment' ahead of their children's emotional well-being.
7
Good performances, but there is absolutely nothing to this movie.
10
It’s interesting to read other people’s take on the dynamic of “Marriage Story.” In some ways, it’s a litmus a litmus test for attitudes about marriage, parenthood, and gender roles and expectations.
One thing that really bothers me about the writing is that Baumbach chose to have Johansson run back to the safety net of her affluent mother’s gorgeous home in an uber-upscale neighborhood. So even though she is taking a risk to find her mojo, she’s still taking the easy way out. She’s not leaping into the unknown. She knows she’s going to have a soft landing, regardless of how her tv gig ends up. I suspect that Baumbach wrote that detail in out of a deep seated resentment toward women. He had to make her character weaker, in that way.
Just my take.
14
I disagree with the writer’s take on “Marriage Story.” I thought the film’s ending landed with a thud. Adam Driver’s character was still the selfish, needy and controlling person he was at the beginning. The only difference was that he was now the one trying to grab onto his ex-wife’s coat tails, and she was now the sun to his moon. The power shifted, but no one was wiser, or better. She was happier, but was he? I don’t think so. He was still trying to gain territory in her life.
Where the film really failed for me is in never making it clear for the viewer what Scarlett Johansson saw in her husband. I thought he was an odd casting choice. I have never understood the appeal of Adam Driver, but skillful acting and good writing could have overcome my personal (very negative) feelings about the actor. That didn’t happen. He came across as a cold, self-centered jerk and an inept father. So my reaction was not only “Of course she left him,” but “Why was she ever with him in the first place?”.
I have tried several times to watch “The Squid and the Whale.” I cannot get through it. I think the summary provided here clarified why that is. It is a thoroughly male-centric view of the toxic relationship, and toxic family. No thanks. I’d rather hear from the female in the room.
I give Baumbach credit, however, for Scarlett Johansson’s riveting, single-take scene in her lawyer’s office. That alone made the film worthwhile.
1
@Passion for Peaches I could barely sit through that scene in the lawyer's office. To me it was a tedious list of cliches by an actress who I didn't believe for one minute was the character. Each to her own!
7
@Glen Ridge Girl, in fact, from a filmmaking point of view, that was arguably the best scene in the movie. But we all bring our own baggage and prejudices to film watching.
@Passion for Peaches I agree with @Glen Ridge Girl. I'm not sure what you mean by "from a filmmaking point of view"? That scene was hardly cinematic. It dragged on and on, with almost no movement in it, and was entirely dialogue and exposition. It would have made an excellent scene in theater. From a filmmaking point of view, I respectfully beg to differ: it was a very poor scene.
4
Why describe Baumbach's marriage to Leigh as "failed"? That seems to contradict the whole premise of this article.
1
Well, I sat through this film waiting for something “new” to prevail while the story unfolded. Unfortunately it proved to present nothing other than over two hours of shlock. How did this get made?
11
Thank you! I compared it to coming out of Kramer vs. Kramer..... this movie was boring! OK acting, but all these awards? Still can’t figure out what was the affair story. Was it an affair? A fling? Enough I destroy a child’s world????
3
The Squid and the Whale was saved by the performances of Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels; they're real enough, if nothing else in the movie is.
But nobody can save this one, stuck as it is in the director's navel, along with the distractions of a big star who, despite the unflattering 'do, is in over her head.
7
The reason I didn't care about the characters or the ending of Marriage Story is because neither character changed or overcame their limitations. Scarlett Johannsen's Nicole took no responsibility for allowing her husband's career to usurp hers, then took their child across the country to pursue custody and got away with it with no adult consequences. Adam Driver's Charlie seems flummoxed by it all and never asserts himself properly, and the story ends with Nicole in a new relationship with someone who will clearly never challenge her to carve out her own space (which would be growth) and Charlie stumbling into a career move that happens to bring him into proximity of his son. Nothing of note actually happened.
5
Adam Drivers performance with Scarlett Johansson in the long argument scene, left me feeling the same pain I had in my divorce thirty seven years ago. I've never seen anyone in the movies so accurately relate those emotions at such a visceral level.
7
@tom, yes, that scene was painful to watch. I sided with her, though. And I thought they were equally effective in the scene. His part in it was just more OTT.
@tom I totally agree! That scene was wrenching. I was also quite moved when Charlie reads his wife's description of him at the end of the movie and he tries his best to hide his tears from his son..that scene has stayed with me for quite a long time...and made me realized how brilliant of an actor is Adam Driver...
3
I loved it. And I’m not into such movies.i thought Adam driver’s performance was perfection. He definitely was easier to like. But there are no villains, just flawed people in a flawed world. And it touched me.
8
@Lucille Caliendo, do you mean that you found him easier to like than Scarlett Johansson? I thought the opposite. I thought he was loathsome.
1
@Passion for Peaches Yes, Dear! You've made it abundantly clear in all your comments and replies.
4
I cry at Hallmark commercials and this movie did nothing for me, other than feeling very bad for Henry. Scarlet Johannsen might as well have been wearing a sign that "this is me trying to be a relevant actress with no makeup" through most of the movie. Their extreme level of privilege and specialness made it hard to care who ended up where. It seems wildly overrated to me.
16
To me it was just another old story line about the selfish, insensitive husband and his wife who stewed in anger but never communicated her needs, or even tried to work them out.
They are great parents, yes, but even given all of their parental love and attention, they ultimately inflicted the greatest of pain to their son.
I'm so tired of the male bashing, this is just another example.
6
@Anne
Hmmm. I actually found Charlie to be the more sympathetic character. I think that's because his selfishness is spoken about but not depicted onscreen, whereas Nicole's is present tense, in full view of the audience.
10
@D Price
I absolutely agree and I may have not worded my comment correctly.
It was her PERCEPTION of his "selfishness" that brought her to their divorce. To me, he was not selfish at all, but she was.
That's what I meant by male-bashing.
4
The Marriage Story is a middling movie, lacking in cleverness and limited in insight with a screenplay that doesn't "show" why the female protagonist is seeking a divorce. There is some mention made of her predicament and that's all. Naturally the movie has been critically acclaimed.
It's nice that the film came out at the same time as "The Irishman," another critically lauded movie in which heavily made up 80 year old gangsters are physically terrorizing people.
3
@ZHR, the film does show the coldness in their marriage, the disdain they feel for each other, the disengagement. It’s subtle. Maybe you missed it.
This iciness and withdrawal from each other are what kill a marriage, not the fights. If you are fighting, you still care. If disdain sets in. the relationship is dead.
This is precisely why the scene where they have an ugly fight works so spectacularly well. All of that pent up anger and pain comes spilling out. They can hate each other because deep down they do care about each other. It’s a thin line.
I think you missed the point, ZHR.
4
I've been married over 50 years. My thoughts as I watched this movie were along the lines of Can't They Just Talk To EAch Other?
11
No, they could not. And that is the point. That is how relationships die.
Both my wife and I found this film overwrought. I especially found it to be emotionally and intellectually illogical, dishonest. As a director friend of mine used to say, "I'm looking for RHB---recognizable human behavior". These characters and their circumstances repeatedly defied that simple requirement.
And I don't get the Adam Driver thing, (neither does my wife).
But then, I don't get the Benedict Cumberbatch thing. (I DO like him in Sherlock), he works as a prissy, emotionally stunted Brit.
14
Critics love it. Movie watchers not so much. Ask yourself would you sit through this a second time? Barely got through the first time.
20
I was hoping for a masterpiece, which "Marriage Story" is not. And (as with "The Irishman"), even though I'm a big streaming fan, I'm starting to see that creating pieces primarily for streaming platforms, where run time is less of a concern, allows a director to disregard that the final cut could be, um, leaner.
That said, I watched this film twice in three days, first alone and then with my husband. Sure the film is imperfect, but Adam Driver's performance (which enabled my second viewing) was a revelation.
14
@D Price Agree, Adam Driver's performance is excellent!
10
I was hoping for a masterpiece, which "Marriage Story" is not. And (as with "The Irishman"), even though I'm a big streaming fan, I'm starting to see that creating pieces primarily for streaming platforms, where run time is less of a concern, allows a director to disregard that the final cut could be, um, leaner.
That said, I watched this film twice in three days, first alone and then with my husband. Sure the film is imperfect, but Adam Driver's performance (which enabled my second viewing) was a revelation.
Sorry. Just couldn’t stomach it. Well acted I’d say, but in the end, a movie about upper middle class angst. He wants to stay in NYC and she wants to go back to LA. Both characters under such turmoil over career milestones and lost opportunities.
8
Well acted and a tad maudlin, if the reviewer came away from the movie ‘feeling good’ then bully for him. I for one don’t believe Baumbach had any intention of creating a film with a feel good narrative. I am completely unaware of the author’s backstory, perhaps it’s better that way. When you are in the public light and everything is magnified by the likes of TMZ, it’s only natural to make a film about the trauma you and your spouse underwent due to divorce. However at the end of the day, the Adam Driver character committed adultery, divorce was its by product. Regardless of how you felt about the characters.
2
Having been through a fairly cordial divorce brokered by a mediator, this movie made me grateful that my ex-husband and I could approach our divorce with maturity and consideration for the other person. Marriage Story is a perfect example of how divorce can bring out the worst in people, or perhaps more specifically, how divorce lawyers can bring out the worst in people - if the two people involved allow it to happen. Sadly, too many people do.
6
This movie felt very much to me like it was written and directed by a man because of its stronger portrayal of the male experience. I recalled two divorce themed movies from my young adulthood that were written & directed by men, and which, despite the different way each examined divorce, I thought did a much better job of realistically representing the wife's experience and her profound and complicated sense of loss - Robert Benton's "Kramer vs Kramer" and Paul Mazursky's "An Unmarried Woman."
18
Unfortunately, I detect a pattern in the new era of Netflix and Amazon rush to claim the mantle of “creator,” not just distributor, of content. Recent productions like “Marriage Story” and “The Irishman” by respected directors known for critical hits are, actually, dull and overly played, somewhat disappointing. I can’t help feeling there’s a pass given by critics here for some reason, just because they are on streaming services.
At the same time, “independent” and smaller films, and interesting foreign dramas, have disappeared—once the real appeal of these alternative delivery options. We are getting too much recycled, bland-TV, filler content instead. As cost to the cosumer creeps back towards Comcast levels.
13
@JP I don't know if you're generally correct. I am still on Netflix DVD service. But I recently rented the HBO series 'My Brilliant Friend', and it was the opposite of what you're talking about: it was an extremely "interesting foreign drama". Maybe it's a rare exception (or maybe HBO isn't considered streaming).
Actually, Baumbach seems to have made subtle revenge movie directed at his own ex-wife. This movie superficially seems to portray the two sides as good people drawn into an ugly conflict, but in the end it is clear that Baumbach sympahtizes with Charlie and portrays him as the victim of Nicole's indecisiveness and frivolity.
The tedious story of these two spoiled, privileged characters trivializes the difficulty of divorce.
28
Agreed
2
Caveat: I’m not and have never been nor never will be married to a man. However, I found myself intrigued by this movie and watched it over several sittings because it was long and I kept falling asleep. When it was all over, I cried at the last scene out of frustration at how they’d become trapped and dug in. But also left feeling like the could have been titled “Marriage Story: Men have Feelings, Too”
1
It was a feel good movie in the way that it made me feel better about my parent's divorce. Seeing it from another side other than my own was good for my own healing. Rather than seeing where they are now, I see the progress they have made.
3
Boring, tedious, meandering, and way too long. Hard to care about any of them, including the kid. I didn't believe they cared about each other either. I would have turned it off after fifteen minutes but my companion wanted to continue watching.
23
How about making a movie about a marriage that works?
I’m sure there are plenty. I have one.
Too boring?
16
@Steven Roth Yes, in fact. That would be boring. A story without any conflict ultimately has nothing to say.
2
@Steven Roth To paraphrase Tolstoy, every happy family is happy in the same way. Every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way. So the answer to your question is yes. Happiness is wonderful for those in it. For those outside looking in, yawn. Conflict, on the other hand, may contain answers all of us seek for ourselves.
2
Writing 101: Drama is about conflict.
3
I found this movie unwatchable. Boring, inane -- I gave up about 25 minutes in when Scarlet Johanssen, her mother, and her sister were all in a tizzy because Adam Driver was on his way over and the sister was supposed to hand him the divorce papers. It was like something out of a silly sitcom. The scene where Johanssen is telling Laura Dern about what went wrong in the marriage was interminable, and I absolutely didn't care or believe for one minute that she was the character. She was just reciting lines -- badly. And a good movie would show this, not tell it. Very disappointing, as I have liked Baumbach's earlier films, especially "The Squid and the Whale." I gave up and went back to watching "The Crown," which is everything this movie isn't -- engaging, intelligent, nuanced.
29
@Glen Ridge Girl
Totally agree
sadly I watched to whole movie
it did not get better
didn't feel sorry for either one
2
@Glen Ridge Girl I liked the movie a great deal but I thought that scene was ridiculous and wasted the talents of an excellent actress.
1
why not entertain the idea of renewable marriage licenses? every 5 years for couples with no children; every 10 years for couples with minors up to 18 yrs. old, etc.
might just be more humane......
2
Nope. Not going to watch it.
1
There is virtually nothing "feel good" about this movie.
11
It's a very good movie, but not a great one. It's absolutely not a feel good movie and it's maybe 20 minutes too long.
7
You get married in Church or the court clerk’s office with a $20 marriage license. You get divorced with thousands of dollars of fees in a tough courtroom battle. How ironic is the contrast. Too bad it’s not the other way around, so all understood the seriousness of the commitment they were about to make in marriage and if it didn’t work out parted in love.
9
The last scene is the key...but it took way too long to get there.
7
Marriage Story is anything but. It is an examination of how WE are running our lives, our churches and our government similarly to a business.
If 20 seconds at the end of this fable describes something "feeling good" about things then it is the perfect example of the meta-divorce within ourselves and not just our outsides.
2
very bleak, un- relenting dialogue, not much learned, way too long, but.... i love adam driver!
6
Hollywood almost aways always always portrays divorce as if there are no boundaries, which is annoying to those of us average mortals who have real divorces. Exes waltzing into each others homes without knocking? Not even one of my divorced friends has that kind of arrangement with their ex. Nothing makes boundaries less clear to kids than having parents who tell you they can't live together anymore always ending up in each others kitchens. Pitbull divorce lawyers whose minimum retainers are $25K plus $25K for financial review plus don't forget the $900/hourly rate? Almost made me stop watching Marriage Story.
The movie would have fallen in with all the other fairly predictable Hollywood divorce movies if it weren't for the performance of the surprising Adam Driver. His portrayal of rage and anger was astonishingly real, and he 110% deserves every award nomination he receives for this role.
17
“Marriage Story” is a very good movie but it explores many of the old tropes about divorce - the pettiness, cruelty, and heartache. That is enhanced by the caricature divorce lawyers in the film who live up to how some real life ones act. What the storyline hints at, but never pursued, is the couple’s initial willingness to divorce amicably and without lawyers. Sadly, I’ve done both types of divorce and the one using an arbitrator and a mutual willingness to collaborate on what is best for the children and each other was far, far better. We began and ended the process as friends and twenty years later we still are. Our children suffered for a time but grew into lovely, married, and well adjusted young women. For me, it seems the narrative about divorce is usually focused on the small minded fighting exacerbated by lawyers whose financial interest lies in prolonging the anguish. As the therapist in “Marriage Story” notes near the start of the film, if the two loved each other once, remember that and use the memory to guide them through a gentler and more empathetic parting of ways. That is where real divorce hope can be found.
12
@Ftl Rev
Unfortunately, it seems that many (most) people aren't able to carry the cognitive dissonance that (a) they want to separate but (b) can still find something admirable in the other person. Usually one partner is too invested in sustaining a negative narrative as a means of justifying the decision to leave. But perhaps in time the narrative can shift and there can be a measure of healing and empathy. (I liked the movie; it was a bit long, but it was moving, and Adam Driver is great.)
2
"But the wrongness of that process is distinct from the rightness of its result, which will give Nicole the freedom she craves"
We all have cravings.
I crave bacon double cheeseburgers. They are delicious and make me happy. In the long term, they will lead to coronary artery disease, so I don't eat many of them.
Life is full of compromises, and we hopefully have enough self awareness to figure out what is truly important to us and make decisions (aka "give in to cravings") that lead us to the things that are most important to us. If family is not that, this is fine. It is better to avoid the whole family thing from the start.
The great fallacy of modern life is that we can "have it all". Previous generations seemed to understand this better. The current generation finds themselves not having it all and then gets angry at the world for thwarting them from the promised "all".
So much is available, so easily. Why isn't _everything_?
21
In my parents times there was a much greater sense of “us” and commitment. Now it’s all about “me”. For many marriage has changed, it is no longer a union, it is now just a partnership.
10
@Andrew I'm not sure it is even a partnership Andrew. It is seen as just one more path to personal fulfillment. When it isn't as fulfilling as imagined, you can cancel it, just like your Netflix subscription.
2