Could have done without the theater bits

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2019)

Marriage Story has a lot going for it including a great cast - with the smaller roles being the most fun - like Alan Alda - but (spoiler here) the dialogue in the scene where the couple each lose it and scream at each other came across to me as too contrived, and not even believable "I wish you would die!" considering that the actual circumstances of the dissolving relationship are pretty tame. Another minor criticism is that for me, the injection of two theatre songs from Stephen Sondheim were off. This is a film, not a play. The scenes work in the sense that the husband and wife playing them are a stage actress and a stage director in the story, fine, but they fall flat for me, perhaps underlining the difference between what is good on the stage and what is good on the screen. Theatre goers may love those scenes but they yanked me right out of the film. All in all, enjoyable but not nearly great.