Marriage Story Review (Film, 2019)
Marriage Story is an unapologetic showcase for actors. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver lead this two-hander about Nicole and Charlie, a married couple with a child starting the process of a divorce. They live together and they work together. They’re both artists. Nicole is an actor who stars in Charlie’s directorial projects at his theater company in NYC. However, Nicole grew up in Los Angeles in the film industry and wants to pursue non-stage projects. This push and pull between their shared careers but opposing ambitions is the crack that slowly erodes into battling scenes of every human emotion you can imagine.
Writer/director Noah Baumbach’s film originally started out as a proposed adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s masterful musical Company. Later in the film, both Nicole and Charlie actually sing songs from the musical in back to back scenes that have very different tones. The inspiration, once revealed, is a strong way of breaking down the intentions of the film.
In Company, Robert is a 35-year-old man who can’t maintain a steady relationship. All of his friends are married or engaged. Over the course of a year, we see Robert spend time with each couple in a series of thematically linked vignettes that always boil down to the same thing: everyone thinks they know what is best for Robert, and what is best for Robert is finding a nice woman to settle down with; Robert disagrees. He’s an observer of the highs and lows of everything a long-term relationship can offer and he just can’t bring himself to commit to the same. He likes his life well enough, but no one else seems to believe him.
In Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach references every major theme, plot, and set-up for a punchline from Company. The difference is the narrative is split between a man and a woman. Charlie and Nicole care for each other and want to stay in each other’s lives; they also can’t stand each other anymore. We see everyone they interact with in their professional and personal lives tell them everything they’re doing wrong. It is, in fact, the outside influence of other people that turns a performative, amicable divorce into a bitter custody battle of their son.
The first and most significant challenger to the level-headed approach is Nora Fanshaw, the most notorious divorce lawyer in Los Angeles. She is the one who convinces Nicole that she has to hire a lawyer to handle the divorce so Charlie can’t take advantage of her. She’s the one that stokes up years of resentment against Charlie to build a case for financial support and majority (if not total) custody of her son Henry. Nora is an analogue to Joanne in Company, blaming Charlie for all the problems that Nicole faces because women like her and Nicole are expected to dial back their own ambitions to support their men. Baumbach cleverly has Nora always offering people drinks as a nod to Joanne’s iconic “The Ladies Who Lunch” before she twists the knife further into Charlie for all of his perceived failings.
The rest of the film isn’t as direct as Charlie = Bobby, Nicole = Robert (and yes, there’s a difference), and Nora = Joanne. We’re working in reference the rest of the way for better or worse. The key points are there—air travel, forced celebrations, different aspects of the personality being pulled out by different social groups, living multiple lives (Robert/Bobby tries to keep up with three girlfriends at once in Company) and slowly failing them all—but they’re abstracted. It is, frankly, where the story gets a little muddy and overly familiar. The Company inspiration is a great starting point, but the ground covered in the musical is way more familiar now than it was 50 years ago when Company was first produced.
For me, the film is better in the first half than the second. I think the tone of the film is more exciting before everyone is swinging for anger and sorrow and frustration and greed in every line and action. The decay of Charlie and Nicole’s real relationship is far more believable than the exaggerated soap opera Nora brings out in the divorce proceedings. The novelty of the film is lost when it hits the more familiar volatile divorce tropes.
The reason to watch Marriage Story is the quality of acting. Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson are perfect foils for each other. They have very similar screen presences—inviting, subtle, lived in, even a bit quiet—that allow them plenty of room to push in separate directions. Johansson’s Nicole becomes more dismissive and quick to bite, while Driver’s Charlie becomes more confused and defeated. It’s a more complicated dynamic than that. The actors cleverly adopt each other’s body language and spoken cadences as the film progresses, showing how truly connected they will always be even in divorce.
Laura Dern steals the whole film from underneath then as Nora. Dern’s Nora is just the most charming, kind, and concerned impartial observer you’ve ever met when she first meets with Nicole about the divorce. This pleasant demeanor is broken again and again in subtle ways. Every time Nicole tells her something that she could use to their advantage in the divorce proceedings, Nora immediately starts the spin and pushes for the emotional response. Charlie stopped Nicole from moving back to Los Angeles? Well clearly he’s a selfish monster who cut her career down at the stem right when she started to flower. Charlie invests all of his earning into his theater company? Then he never really cared about supporting Nicole in any serious way as an equal partner in a relationship. The list goes on. It’s incredibly cruel and Dern somehow makes this calculated cruelty a charming trait of Nora.
Dern is in full kill them with kindness mode, able to maintain a friendly demeanor with everyone she meets, even as she actively (nay, gleefully) pursues their utter destruction through the legal system. I would watch a whole film following a day in the life of Nora as she goes from client to client. She’s a stronger director than Charlie, a greater actor than Nicole, and better at anything you think you do well without breaking a sweat.
Marriage Story is an interesting film to examine. I’m not even convinced I liked what I saw, but I appreciated the craft of everyone involved. Baumbach has interesting things to say about theater versus film, the psychological toll of divorce on the couple, and the performative kindness of people working in the arts.
Marriage Story is currently streaming on Netflix.
