An often poignant story about a declining marriage told with a rare feeling of sincerity

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2019)

Marriage Story is a comedy-drama written and directed by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg). Starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, it is an often poignant story about a declining marriage told with a rare feeling of sincerity.
In New York City, Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) lives with his former actress wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and eight-year-old son Henry (Azhy Robertson) where he works as a theatre director for a successful stage company. Due to Charlie's commitment to his hard work, he and Nicole's once happy marriage begins to fall apart, and Nicole decides to move to Los Angeles where she has been offered the lead role in a TV pilot, taking Henry with her. Due to the lengthy travelling distance from east coast to west, Charlie struggles to find time to see Henry in amidst working on his current stage play and risks losing all custody of him in the impending divorce as a result.
With its powerful acting and careful direction, Marriage Story successfully sets itself apart from most other family dramas to become one of the best of its genre in years. It is not often to see a film that can balance both sides of the conflict with such care that it makes you truly think about the ramifications it has on not just the two fighting parties in question, but also the other family members as well. What is also taken into consideration is how extended family are affected too, with Nicole's mother and sister clearly having a close relationship with Charlie throughout the film, realising that their lives will be forever changed by this divorce as well. Of course, in the end, it is obvious that the most affected by all of this will be the child, being exposed to such heavy responsibilities at a young age, like deciding which parent they prefer to live with.
Writer/director Noah Baumbach handles this subject matter with just the right amount of realism to avoid spiralling into cliched territory. This may be due to the fact that Baumbach is a divorcee himself with a young son, and likely wished to depict this heavy topic as genuine as possible so as to reflect his own personal experiences. As well as this, Baumbach appears to have taken influence from films such as "Kramer vs. Kramer" and even his own film, 2005's "The Squid and the Whale", all of which dealt with the subject of divorce in both a light-hearted and serious manner. If I did have one problem, it is that the ending does showcase some brief unnecessary sentimentality, which does detract from the previously mentioned realism, but considering what we have seen each character go through, it only feels like a minor issue.
Both of the film's lead stars gave excellent performances. Seeing Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson verbally bounce off one another with such fiery intensity is truly a fascinating sight. I often found myself forgetting the two aren't actually a couple in real life as their chemistry is simply perfect. There is so much to appreciate in each time the two were interacting, thanks in part to Baumbach's solid script, which gave them several memorable scenes depicting the degradation of their marriage.
In conclusion, I believe this film will certainly strike a chord with anyone who has been through a divorce or has witnessed one unfold before their eyes. Personally, I haven't experienced either, but that did not affect my overall opinion of the film and that likely shouldn't for anyone else. My advice is to take in what the film has to say on this serious topic and appreciate what its writer/director and lead actors have presented for our viewing pleasure.
I rate it 8.5/10