Story Of A Marriage
To talk about the History of a marriage, you have to talk about expectations. From the expectations of both spouses and also mine before seeing the film.
When I read that Adam Driver is a worthy competitor to snatch the Oscar from Joaquin Phoenix as Joker, what I expect is a lot. In addition, we find a Scarlett Johansson who is on her way to rise as the benchmark actress of our time. It was normal to wait a long, long time.
Both performers, following a script by Noah Baumbach, somehow recalling Woody Allen’s golden age and drawing inspiration from his real-life divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh. Nothing could disappoint, the film is good, of an important intellectual and emotional relevance.
However, in the end you realize that, for both hobbies and love, it is best not to reveal too much in advance how much you are going to enjoy them. Watch and wait.
Marriage Story: Nicole and Charlie
The story is simple. It is the story of a marriage. On the surface, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) are an ideal couple. They have lived together for ten years and have an adorable 8-year-old son.
They live in New York, where Charlie has established a pretty good reputation as a director of fashion plays, of which Nicole is often the muse. When the movie begins, Nicole and Charlie read, each on their own, what they like about their partner and what they don’t, but focusing on the conciliatory aspect of telling it.
It seems like a declaration of love after married years, a kind of Marina Abramovich and Ulay experiment that many intellectuals and people related to art usually do. But none of that. It is not an artistic mediation, but psychological and almost judicial, although the couple tries to avoid it.
History does not give time to see the good moments of the couple because we are rushed into divorce. A divorce with an 8-year-old son and different jobs to deal with, each in a different part of the country.
Conflict of interests
E l conflict is exacerbated when Nicole accept the offer to go to Los Angeles, the city where he grew up and where his family lives. She wants to shoot a pilot program for a television series in which she would play an important role, she is motivated by the idea of being able to be a director as well as an actress. She aspires to feel that she is someone on her own after so many years with Charlie in the theater.
Therefore, she intends to settle in the city of Los Angeles with her son. If he wants to have joint parental custody, Charlie must also have a residence there.
However, Charlie wants his son to live in New York with him, where the family has normally resided. The lawyers will be involved in this fight much more than the protagonists (Alan Alda and Ray Liotta on Charlie’s side and Laura Dern on Nicole’s side).
Marriage Story: Seeing Two People Behind the Lens
Seeing two people tearing each other apart over a divorce and not feeling at all shaken is striking. The film surprises and convinces without transmitting a very high emotional charge.
In this sense, not all harrowing shots should affect the viewer. It is much better, sometimes to understand, rather than to feel. This blocks the ability to empathize more with one spouse or another.
Noah Baumbach’s strength comes from taking a certain distance from each of his two main characters, looking at them objectively, as if he refused to allow himself to be perverted by emotions that could affect his judgment.
The taking of plans is exemplary in this regard. Everyone has their reasons, their flaws, their weaknesses … but also their qualities.
They will be kidnapped in some way by external influences represented by the lawyers, who will come to pervert their judgment, their situation to transform it into a fight. It seems that Noah Baumbach measured everything so that the equality was perfect between the two components of this couple in the process of separation.
This dominance, almost absolute, could be considered by many as a weakness of the film. Everything is so balanced that it ends up losing the human factor, the free will of this man and this woman, who are seen, at times, almost more as study subjects than as characters starring in a drama.
Story of a marriage: the tale of intimate frustrations
Noah Baumbach manages to subtly modulate the drift of the feelings in which the characters are drawn. Strong scenes are seen, but you sense that nothing is going to get worse, although there are still higher points in violence and drama.
This couple expresses not only the sum of the small and great intimate frustrations that have accumulated over the years, but also the rivalry between New York and Los Angeles, between theater and television or even between the jurisdictions of two different state.
Their arguments sound like daggers that do not reach the other and do not seem to come out of the person speaking. They try to blame themselves for many things, but it is difficult to describe the end of love. Of admiration and passion after so many years wanting to blame the other without leaving oneself torn inside.
Balance and measure is the most romantic
As poignant as it is, a very funny movie at times. The scene where Nicole’s mother (Julie Hagerty) and sister (Merritt Wever) organize for Charlie to officially receive the divorce petition is downright silly humor. There is this extremely difficult balance between drama and comedy.
With those juggling, between drama and comedy, we reached a situation of understanding where, suddenly, the film explodes in emotionality. There the film meets my expectations of the film.
The director did not want to shock us with the heartbreaking process, but with the nostalgic return to normality, knowing that everything was broken. That is when what one did for the other is more real and raises the courage to divorce when it is due, when you really love a family.
