Marriage Story

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.