Love, marriage & divorce

Rating: 9/10 (22 December 2019)

In one of the film's poignant scenes, theatrical director Charlie Barber (Driver) belted Stephen Sondheim's 'Being Alive' after an acrimonious divorce court tussle left him wounded and exhausted, "But alone is alone. Not alive." The irony is stark when his wife (Johansson) parted ways because she could not feel 'alive' as her dreams in LA are smothered by Charlie's ego and work, where her frustrations are drily vented through Sondheim's other number 'You could drive a person crazy'. The acerbic wit is reminiscent of a Woody Allen movie, but Noah Baumbach's nuanced dissection of the emotional upheavals in a divorce and the bitterness in fighting for custody is gut-wrenchingly raw and humanistic. While Johansson galvanizes with visceral angst and grief from her personal experiences, Driver's performance carries not one false note as he navigates the pain of connecting with his son and coming to terms with his flaws. Laura Dern channels Renata Klein as a divorce attorney, who gives the story a feminist edge with a snarky take on how mothers are expected to be perfect. Together with the solid supporting cast including the bullish Ray Liotta and the wry Alan Alda - along with Randy Newman's romantic score, this union lifts Marriage Story to be a tender and affecting portrait of the complexities of co-parenting, of how we can begin our relationships with love - and end them with grace.