Wow this movie was good. Noah Baumbach is famous for inserting aspects of his own life into each of his movies so that all of them have a slight auto-biographical feel to them. This movie is no difference and Baumbach sites it as one of his most personal movies. Since Baumbach’s one story infiltrates Marriage Story in so many ways, it’s worth delving a bit into his interesting background for those of you who may not know his movies.
A child of divorce himself and going through a divorce of his own from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, Baumbach is no stranger to having divorce be a theme in his movies. Leigh and Baumbach initially separated in 2010 with the divorce not being finalized until 2013; the two had one child together, Since then he has been with OFD favorite Greta Gerwig since 2011, but the two have not married, instead opting for the term partner; the two had a child together in March of 2019. Baumbach usually writes, directs and produces his own material, beginning with Kicking and Screaming (no, not the Will Ferrell comedy about soccer) in 1995 where he had his directorial debut, wrote and acted in it as well. His first significantly critically acclaimed movie came in 2005’s The Squid and the Whale, which he wrote and directed, and for which he was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. This film most resembles Marriage Story, as it tells the semi-autobiographical tale of the impact of his parents (played by Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney) divorce on the family and his life in growing up in Brooklyn in the aftermath. Baumbach has often been criticized for solely focusing in the “Northeast elite” but his ability to portray every painstaking detail so accurately has often been able to quiet these critics.
Baumbach also has a pattern of collaborating consistently with the same people. He’s also known as a frequent Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel). The two have collaborated on three movies to date including The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and She’s Funny That Way. Anderson is not Baumbach’s only frequent collaborator, having worked with longtime partner Greta Gerwig on multiple projects as well. The two co-wrote both Frances Ha (2012) and Mistress America (2015) together and prior to that Gerwig starred in his 2010 film Greenberg. Gerwig garnered critical acclaim for her performance in Frances Ha, receiving her first Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Other actors he’s worked with on multiple projects include Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Adam Driver; all actors with deep acting chops, with the rare ability to be both very funny and portray a dramatic talent. Baumbach has been praised for his ability to draw out these dramatic talents from his actors, which brings us to 2019’s Marriage Story, where stars Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Laura Dern are all in talks to receive an Academy Award nominations for their roles in Marriage Story, along with Baumbach himself for Director, Screenplay and Best Picture. Not a bad haul.
I was lucky enough to see this movie at the Hamptons Film Festival, where Baumbach himself came out afterwards to address the audience about the movie. Being from the New York area, he describes the importance of setting and how displacement can feel so alienating. This feeling of being displaced both figuratively and literally is deeply ingrained in this movie, as we’re taken from New York to Los Angeles when Scarlett’s character Nicole “Nick” decides she wants to start taking her desires and dreams back into her own hands by moving to Los Angeles.
I absolutely love the first scenes of the movie; Nick and Adam Driver’s character Charlie are in couples counseling and asked to write down all the things they love about the other. So the first scene is Charlie’s voiceover, describing all of the little things he loves about Nick and the second scene is a Nick voiceover, describing all of the little things she loves about Charlie. The great part is there’s so much detail in these letters; from big picture things like Nick being able to give constant support to Charlie professionally to Nick appreciating that Charlie loves doing all the Dad things that most Dad’s may find annoying like sleeping in bed with their kid when he’s scared, down to smaller things like Nick loving that Charlie is super neat. It’s such an intimate way to become connected to the characters immediately – no time is wasted to help the audience fall in love with the characters little idiosyncrasies the way we adore similar habits in our own loved ones and simultaneously have us understand the deep love and connection between the characters. I could probably watch those two scenes over and over again – maybe that’s the optimist in me.
From there, we see the two slowly disintegrate, giving Baumbach the opportunity to flesh out the characters so specifically. For example, Nick acts in all of Charlie’s plays and after a performance, the two are at home arguing about the quality of the TV show in Los Angeles Nick was offered to star in; even as the two are sitting stewing about the fight, Nick knows that no matter what, Charlie will not be able to sleep unless he gives her notes on her performance that night. Just in that scene, we understand that Nick really values Charlie’s opinions, but his fear of losing her over the show and maybe his own pretentious beliefs about plays versus tv makes him defensive and unnecessarily mean so he puts her down; but at the same time he also really values her artistic talents and just wants to help make her better. We understand that push pull dynamic as well as dive further into their own neuroses. It’s scenes like this that help pack such an aggressive punch when we arrive at the climactic fight scene towards the end of the movie.
Before we get to that emotional scene, I need to take a minute to fully appreciate Laura Dern. After Nick decides to officially leave both Charlie and New York behind, she moves back in with her mom at her childhood home in Los Angeles, where her sister also still resides, and takes the TV show job. When Nick and Charlie decided to separate, they promised each other it would be extremely amicable and not involve lawyers. Once arriving in LA however, Nick is convinced to go down a different path and hires a divorce lawyer; enter Laura Dern. High-powered, no bull-shit, impeccably dressed and bad ass, Laura Dern essentially reinvents her role as Renata Klein from Big Little Lies but ups the ante. Her charm is irresistible as you can’t help but admire her style. Dern is already getting Oscar buzz for Best Supporting Actress for this role and I’d be shocked if the scene they submit isn’t her speech to Nick about expectations for women in society; men are allowed to be absentee parents but women are expected to be able to do it all and you have to protect yourself in these situations. The end of this speech garnered a cheer from the crowd of women who surrounded me in the theater, which I of course joined in on; it felt extremely validating and empowering. Dern for President (or Best Supporting Actress… whichever)
However, Nick’s decision to hire a lawyer and then Dern’s savviness and ruthlessness is what tumbles Nick’s relationship with Charlie out of control. Charlie can’t understand why Nick is doing this and it takes him a long time to come to terms with it and hire one of his own. The crux of the legal argument comes from Nick wanting to move to LA and have their son, Henry (Azhy Robertson), live with her there, while Charlie insists they are a New York family and wants Henry to live with him in New York. After a brutal session with their lawyers, Charlie and Nick have it out. The two cut deep into each other, poking cruelty at each others insecurities in only someone who knows you so well can do. They scream and fight and it’s hard to watch; we’ve become so close with these characters and it hurts to see them tear each other down like this. But that’s part of the genius of this movie. We know them so well because Baumach so meticulously gave us all the details about the two so that we knew just how deep each insult really cut.
Due to the electricity of this epic fight scene, Baumbach of course fielded multiple questions by the moderator after the screening regarding what it took to capture it in the powerful way that he did.
Baumbach describes it as one of the only scenes he’s experienced in all of his time as a director that he felt so emotionally involved in the scene that he would physically have to leave set and take a walk around the block to give himself a break from all of the emotion. He describes the scene, accurately, as a build up that required a great deal of energy from both himself and Driver and Johansson that felt exhausted afterwards. He elaborates that it took 2 days to film. Since the characters are so personal, Baumbach also describes having long talks with Driver, Johansson and Dern about their characters, knowing he wanted them to feel just as personally investing in the characters as he did himself.
I think the most interesting thing Baumbach said during the Q&A after the movie, which unfortunately I did not capture on video, was that he actually thinks of this more as a love story. In his other films about divorce, he describes that they very much felt like movies about separation and divorce, but that this was more of a love letter to the characters and to the relationship, as we get to see a lot of good in both of them and the fierce love they have towards their son, and each other even though that love obviously transforms as they separate and is forced to take a new form as they continue to co-parent their child. It was such a beautiful way of describing the story and felt so true – so many break-up stories have an aura of sadness that feels overarching, while this movie is of course heartbreaking, has an aura of happiness that hangs over it as we see them move on from each other and bend their love to new shapes.
I am lucky enough to not be a child of divorce and many of the relationships I grew up experiencing through my friends and my own family were fortunately happy. I love my parents and have always admired their way to work through things together, even through the scary screaming matches that all couples are bound to experience at some point. Because of this, I feel I’m able to purely enjoy the movie as a different kind of love story, and really revere the performances. I’m interested to hear how children or people who are divorced may feel differently. And I suspect I’ll get those answers as this movie will most certainly enter awards season in a huge way.
