You don’t want a voice, you just wanna complain about not having a voice…‘
The problem with Noah Baumbach films, whether it be The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha or The Meyerowitz Stories is that they stand and fall on how much of an emotional attachment can be established between filmmaker and audience. Nobody watches these films for the plot, and they certainly don’t watch them for the action. No, Baumbach excels at delivering emotion, at producing films that are arty and real. The problem is that if you aren’t rich or from New York or LA than there isn’t a hell of a lot here to relate to. And so, to Marriage Story…
Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) are in the midst of seemingly amicable divorce. Whilst trying to remain fair to each other and to their son Henry (Azhy Robertson), the couple clash over where they should raise their child, their respective artistic merits and past indiscretions.
The great success of Marriage Story is that it doesn’t pick sides. Sometimes Charlie comes across as a narcissistic dickhead and other times Nicole is unreasonable and vindictive. Baumbach shows the viewer both ends of the argument and allows them to make their own minds up. It is refreshing to see that great truth acknowledged that nobody is all good or all bad. We are all just basically decent people trying our best. Everyone succumbs to selfishness at times and everyone does things that they regret. This doesn’t automatically make someone a bad person. All that we can do is to try and keep our more unfortunate impulses in check and look after those around us.
The other high point in Baumbach’s Oscar nominated movie is the acting. I, for one, love Kylo Ren but plenty of people don’t. For this, Adam Driver has an undeserved reputation as being a one dimensional actor. This performance should put all of that to bed. He is genuinely phenomenal throughout here in a complex and multi faceted performance and while Johansson isn’t quite as magnetic, she still more than holds her own, particularly in the more emotional scenes.
If I was a theatre actor living in a studio apartment in New York this would probably be my film of the year. As it is, even though it takes place in a world so far removed from my own, I still found a lot to enjoy here. One of the best Netflix original movies to date.