Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, delivers a story about two people going through the complicated journey of getting a divorce. Although a story about separation, Baumbach carefully reminds us throughout the film that even though the dynamic of their relationship has changed, the two characters still remain loyal to the affection they once shared.
The film starts with Nicole (Johansson) and Charlie (Driver) reciting a list of things they love about each other on the advice of a marriage counselor, as an attempt to remember the fondness they once felt for the other. Right from the beginning, the opening montage makes it clear that Marriage Story is not about falling out of love, but the falling of a marriage. As we explore the reasons in the first ten minutes of the movie, we are reminded how ordinary, yet rare, love truly is. The viewers are instantly overwhelmed by how much they find this unusual situation, relatable.
The film establishes soon into the script that Charlie is a self-made theatre director in New York City, who has recently been presented with the opportunity to take his play to Broadway. However Nicole, renowned for her excellent performance in Charlie’s plays, when offered a starring role in a television series, decides to give it a shot and moves to Los Angeles with their son, Henry (Azhy Robertson).
As the divorce process proceeds forward, Nicole is confronted by her lawyer, Nora (Laura Dern) about the truth behind her marriage. She expresses Charlie being neglectful towards her wishes and desires and constantly taking decisions shaped around his own happiness. She even admits to Charlie being unfaithful to her with the stage manager, back in New York. But, what Nicole believes motivated the divorce is her struggle to find her voice and not confuse Charlie’s purpose with her own.
Baumbach finds a way to incorporate comedy even through the intense atmosphere with awkward encounters, often reflective of real life scenarios. Like, Nicole’s sister, Cassie (Merritt Wever) practicing how to serve Charlie the divorce papers and then messing it up.
When served with the divorce papers, a clueless Charlie, travelling back and forth, from New York to Los Angeles, is hurried into finding a lawyer to remain a prospective candidate in Henry’s custody. Charlie growing up in an abusive household, wants to fight for his son and be present in his life. However, in the process, Charlie comes to learn that Nicole had already visited most lawyers in Los Angeles making it harder for him to claim their status as New York family, and other shrewd realities of getting a divorce.
However, he is not alone in this discovery. Charlie’s lawyer, Jay (Ray Liotta) dismisses Nicole during the settlement discussion, as an alcoholic based on a sarcastic comment Nicole had made earlier to Charlie, in the privacy of their home. This magnifies the disturbing reality of how two people once sharing a life together, can allow such cruelty upon one another. Aptly, as mentioned earlier in the film, “Criminal lawyers see bad people at their best, and divorce lawyers see good people at their worst.”
After having lawyers fight for shares in grant money and TV shows, dissecting every utter to prove the other as the worse partner or parent, for the sake of their clients. Charlie and Nicole decide to sit and talk it through but, unfortunately, it results into a screaming match with both of them yelling hurtful things at each other. Ending with Charlie yelling that he wished Nicole was dead and immediately regretting it, having a breakdown, and Nicole comforting him.
In the few last parting scenes of the film, Henry who struggles with reading skills throughout the majority of the movie, attempts reading the letter Nicole had written for Charlie in the opening montage. Assisted by his father, we witness three of them choking on tears as Charlie reads on “I will never stop loving him, even though it doesn’t make sense anymore.” A language quite complicated, but an emotion very familiar to them.
It is quite an impossible task to regard either of them as the good guy or the bad guy. We see Charlie, who’s in denial almost throughout the entirety of the film about his ending marriage, and Nicole finally discovering her freedom in her actions and decisions. As we see these two ordinary people, in an extraordinary situation, who once shared tremendous love towards each other, pushing themselves to be better parents their child, we grow to appreciate the humanity in their characters.
