Marriage Story is a emotional, intimate portrait of love and divorce that we have never seen.

Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach’s latest film, starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johasson and Laura Dern, is a personal look of how love deteriorates, and how cruel divorce can be.  

I will try to keep this review as spoiler free as I possibly can, as I know the film is not released until November 6th and this is an experience you really should go into blind.  

We first meet Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johanson) through a couple of vignettes, which are beautiful montages which each partner speaks about what they love about the other.  We quickly find out that we are in a therapist’s office, and their assignment was to find what made them marry each other in the first place.  

 Charlie and Nicole are a New York-based couple and have been feeling distant in their marriage.  Though, it is important to note, Charlie is born and raised in New York, while Nicole was born in Los Angeles, and moved to California permanently upon marrying Carlie.  Charlie is a hard-working theatre director whose reputation seems to overshadow that of Nicole’s acting career. She is the leading lady in all of his plays, but his work seems to become more memorable. Since Charlie runs his own theatre company, he is often busy, leaving Nicole to care for their child, Henry (Azhy Robertson).  Nicole also makes claims that she has always desired to move back to California, but Charlie has always shrugged it off or ignored her. These issues have built up over the course of years, which they try to resolve via a counselor, but to no avail. This results in the premise of our story, the divorce. 

What amazes me most about this film is its balance between humor and tragedy, because that is what reality is like.  Noah Baumbach manages to capture that fine line in humanity each time in his films such as Frances Ha, The Meyerowitz Stories, and While We Were Young. Just before Charlie is served his divorce papers, he is riding on one of the biggest highs of his life, laughing with Nicole’s mother.  We are laughing with him, as we cannot help but enjoy this cute moment.  But then the moment hits. He sees the envelope enclosed with the serving papers. My stomach dropped, and I was mid-smile, but then I gasped the next moment. Many times throughout this film, I found myself laughing one moment and the next nearly in tears, and that is a testament to how expertly not only Noah handled this film and his characters, but also how incredibly well-acted this was.  I cannot state enough how real and raw of a story this felt.  

At first both parties want to settle this peacefully.  That is until Nicole meets Nora, (Laura Dern) a divorce lawyer, who convinces her to take an aggressive approach.  This forces Charlie into tough positions, as Nora intends on full custody of Henry in California, while Charlie still lives in New York.  We see the lengths a loving father would go to to fight for and see his son. This results in emotional, heart-wrenching verbal fights between the couple, but also showdown legal battles that almost forces us to take sides as they slander each other in hopes of gaining custody of their son. 

Throughout this entire film, though, Bambauch does an excellent job of portraying both sides of the story.  We understand, deeply, the anger and pain that led them to this place. They explode, they try, they fail. Despite all of this, you can see that they do love one another, and this process is gruelling on both ends.  Charlie and Nicole are both wonderfully human, and that is the highest compliment I can give to writing.  

Overall, Marriage Story was one of the most moving, and heart-breaking films I have seen.  The stellar cast Baumbach has chosen combined with his wonderfully tragic script makes you forget that you are watching a film, instead you believe these characters are real. You feel for them, you cry for them, you laugh with them. This is a film I do not believe audiences will soon forget.