Director Noah Baumbach gives this film a fine balance between feeling like a stage play yet also feeling like a documentary—achieved by lingering on the monologues and framing the two main actors in ways that depict their emotional distance from one another. The couple, played powerfully by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, are shown either with walls between them or as close to the opposing ends of the screen as possible to convey just how separated they feel even when they’re together. It makes for an explosive argument between the two that may just as well be one of the scariest movie scenes in history.
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The screenplay is another factor in how the ultimate theme of romantic breakups works so effectively; there’s such keen attention paid to the character arcs, which often are illustrated purely by pictures and voiceovers in the form of montages. As it shifts attention back-and-forth between the husband and the wife, the audience is assigned the role of taking sides, just like in real life when friends are forced to take sides when a couple they know breaks up. While not a pleasant watch, Marriage Story proves why divorce is not always a failure, because, in the end, there’s still a wonderful collection of memories to think back to. No movie before this has ever given such a harsh depiction of divorce, but more depictions like this in the future will be guaranteed.

R (DLSV)
Drama
2 hr. 16 min.

Watch it to THINK. 
Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel SAD and AFRAID.

This ambitious study on the unexpected virtue of ignorance tells its story with what is made to look like one long continuous take without any edit cuts. The clever tricks utilized to pull off this illusion included time-lapses to transition to a different time of day and letting objects move across the frame to hide swipe transitions between cuts. These shots lasted anywhere between 9-16 minutes long, and 90% of the film was digitally altered in some way, such as by removing the camera crew from the mirrors the actors constantly looked into. These mirrors were essential to achieve Iñárritu’s vision because they helped crop the actors without needing to cut or change the camera position, doubling as narrative symbolism to represent the ego of whoever is looking into those mirrors.
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Besides being an endeavor for the production crew, this narrative style was also a challenge that stretched the skill of the cast. Michael Keaton and Edward Norton both act their hearts out when they’re together, while Emma Stone delivers a monologue that’s guaranteed to ignite goosebumps. Yet there’s so much more that makes this movie so great: the dialogue is brilliant, the musical drum score is awesome, and the cinematography is among the most gorgeous ever put to film. There’s just so much about Birdman that makes it everything a movie should be, while also being a needed push for the potential of art.

R (DLSV​)
Comedy/Drama
1 hr. 59 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to THINK.
Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY.

Academy Award-winner My Octopus Teacher talks about how a man’s study of a single octopus changed him over the course of a year, and in this time, he never treats the animal like a pet, refusing to even give her a name. This is the feature film debut of director/marine journalist Pippa Ehrlich, which is remarkable considering how difficult production must have gotten with all the underwater filming. With all their work in this gorgeously dense kelp forest of South Africa, the crew documents all the things an octopus wouldn’t commonly be known to do, such as express every emotion a human could express. Then after filming was over, it took them about three months to generate some form of narrative from the recorded content.

​​The finished product gives not just a scholarly analysis of octopus behavior but a strong environmental conservation message that doesn’t come off as excessively preachy; the focus instead remains on the powerful relationship between a man and an octopus. It does what very few documentaries have done in proving that the best way to study an animal isn’t in a classroom but in its natural habitat. The heavy set of emotions that this little movie offers on such a small creature is overwhelming enough to shake up the industry of documentary filmmaking, perhaps by encouraging more underwater filming or by writing more narratives structured around a year-long experience.

G
Documentary
1 hr. 25 min.

Watch it to LEARN.
Watch it to THINK.
Watch it to feel HAPPY and SAD.