“Cries easily in movies…”
This earnest sentiment is something that Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) loves about Charlie (Adam Driver) in writer-director Noah Baumbach’s latest film, Marriage Story. It also wholly and accurately captures my own experience watching this film.
A bittersweet story about reaching the expiration date of a relationship, Marriage Story opens the floodgates to romantic emotional catharsis through its exploration of one of the most complex emotions humans experience: love (and love lost).
When we first meet Charlie and Nicole, it is at the end of a short-lived “happily ever after.” While on paper they seem like compatible life partners who adore each other, underneath the surface lies change, growth, and resentment that can’t be suppressed any longer. Stuck at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives, they decide to separate. Charlie, a director at a local theatre company, will remain in the couple’s Brooklyn apartment while Nicole temporarily moves back into her mother’s house in Los Angeles with their young son, Henry (Azhy Robertson), as she stars in a new TV pilot. The assumed agreement is to finalize their split once work commitments lighten up. But as the couple grows, and then physically moves, further apart from each other, the seemingly uncomplicated untangling of the relationship starts to get messy.
Nicole’s feelings of shrinking into invisibility and feeling like nothing more than a vessel for Charlie’s artistic expression is at the root of her unhappiness. She admits to getting caught up in his spark but has come to discover over time that the facade was nothing more than narcissism and control disguised as the charisma of a tortured artist. Charlie, whose own selfishness has blinded him to the realities of his personal life, feels gaslighted by Nicole’s sudden decision to involve lawyers (Laura Dern, Ray Liotta) and overcomplicate already complicated matters. But people are complicated, and Marriage Story is sensitive to the fact that people evolve over time, and not always together.
Marriage Story is a masterclass in acting, with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson delivering a pair of performances that rank amongst the best of the year. Driver, who has collaborated with writer/director Noah Baumbach three times prior, plays both sympathetic and arrogant in a way that we want to slap him and hug him simultaneously. From the subtle lip quivers to the heartfelt rendition of Company’s “Being Alive” at the piano bar, he is the embodiment of a man who, with nothing left to lose, begins to wear his heart on his sleeve. Johansson as Nicole, a woman finally in charge of her own life after sitting in the passenger’s seat for too long, has a boldness and bravery that serves as inspiration for those struggling to feel seen that this reviewer can attest to.
It can be hard to express the effects of romantic loss without feeling heavy-handed, and yet Baumbach so delicately alludes to Nicole’s struggles in a way that perfectly describes the very natural progression of a relationship running its course. Relationships like Charlie and Nicole’s are never black and white – never truly all bad, or all good – which is what makes the decision to leave such a monumental one and one that is sure to keep Marriage Story in the minds and hearts of all who experience it.
MARRIAGE STORY (2019)
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Merritt Wever
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Written by Noah Baumbach
Distributed by Netflix. 136 minutes.
Available to stream this Friday, December 6, on Netflix.
