Dir: Noah Baumbach

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Adam Driver
Scarlett Johansson
Laura Dern
Ray Liotta

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A story told completely from the heart, with a natural understanding of what it means to go through the end of a relationship, Marriage Story enlightens the audience with powerful performances and some of the best dialogue I have heard in years.

Noah Baumbach wows again with this passionate telling of a couple going through a painful divorce (without using lawyers…until they use lawyers) and dealing with the trials and tribulations of going through this life changing event whilst considering the effects it will have on their child.

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Nicole (Johansson) opens the film with a voice over of all the things she loves about Charlie (Driver), stating how caring and loving he is and why he’s such a perfect husband who can do no wrong. Overlaid with images of their family life, their child Henry, and the work they do together. This is then mirrored with a similar montage with Charlie speaking about how much he loves, adores and cherishes Nicole, and all the great things about her and their life together.

We are then transported to a marriage councillors office where they’re reading off lists titled “what I love about Nicole/Charlie”. It’s instantly a sad scene, Nicole refuses to read hers out loud and ends up storming out when Charlie tries to make light of the situation.

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As the story unfolds we find out every detail of their marriage and lives, the troubles they have faced and the things they love about each other. In turn we see Nicole struggle to make up her mind about the divorce, it seems she is constantly going back and forth with the idea of it happening.

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As their divorce gets more and more complicated, with Nicole moving back from New York to her home town in California, Henry getting settled at a new school, Charlie’s play making its transition to Broadway and other every day situations making life difficult for them, Nicole decides to hire a divorce lawyer. Her lawyer comes in the form of feisty, feminist family attorney Nora Fanshaw (Dern). Once Charlie finds out about Nora he is then inclined to hire one for himself, this is when things start to get ugly, and more importantly, things start to get expensive.

The law is not on either parties side in getting any form of custody of Henry so sacrifices are made on both sides.

Jam packed with powerful and addictive performances, Baumbach does what he does well and tells a realistic story about real life. Johansson gives a career best performance in the role of Nicole, stating in interviews since the films launch that she took her own experiences of divorce into account when portraying Nicole. Driver never fails to impress and long may that continue, in Marriage Story he plays Charlie, a completely different role to anything I have seen him in before, he couldn’t be any further from Kylo Ren if he tried.

The supporting roles are also on top form, such fabulous casting choices brought Ray Liotta and Laura Dern to the picture and I was very thankful for that.

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Marriage Story is truly beautiful and eye opening to what it’s really like to go through a divorce in this day and age. Fuelled by lawyer costs and child care arrangements, it almost makes the idea of happy, simple marriage seem like something of the past.

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I don’t think it’s a film that necessarily needs to be re-watched, but I wouldn’t be upset if I did see it again.