A nuanced cautionary tale about the effects of selfishness or lack of empathy in relationships.

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2020)

A marriage story is an allegory of many of the things that can go wrong in the process of a divorce, when the two people involved are attempting to find a peaceful and communicative family system. At the onset the protagonists, Charlie Barber (Adam Driver), Nicole Barber (Scarlet Johannson), were selecting a really sensible option by opting out from getting lawyers and not be bombarded by all the legal liabilities of getting lawyers and going to court, but their naiveté demonstrated them that life is not that simple when two people want to start a new life and share responsibilities and, most importantly, a child.
Adam Driver displays a clear ability to play a character that is authentic, rational, taciturn, rigid, but yet friendly and emotionally available. I believed in his character, despite exuding deficits at showing emotion in key scenes of the movie. He is the stereotypical character that thinks before he speaks. Scarlet Johannson plays a more emotional, passionate, impulsive, and confused character that is afflicted by her partner's selfishness. She married at a really young age and had no time to explore her needs and wants and ultimately existed in the shadow of her husband. The movie was a perfect opportunity to experience both Adam Driver's and Scarlet Johannson's range, histrionics, chemistry, depth in persona, but I think both of them fell short on what they could have delivered in the movie. The scenes of high emotionalism were not arousing simply by their performance but needed forced cinematographic inclusions to be able to amplify our sensibilities.
I have a bit of a gripe with the title. The movie unwittingly implies that marriages are like what is shown in the movie without being accurate about its depiction. It is more consistent to call the movie a divorce story rather than a marriage story, but I assume the narrative wanted to make a statement about the qualia of marriage in the twenty first century.
A marriage story is not in any level a bad movie, but it had so much to be able to reach Excellency. The characters are multi-dimensional. We get a cross-referenced perspective of each protagonist that adds so much to the movie. It is not only a story of these people damaging and hating each other. We see how much they care despite all the disagreements and difficulties. The gestures shown by both add to the tenderness and beauty of their relationship. This care is maybe what could have been dealt also in a more conceptual way and less in heavy handed scenes that seemed disappointing, but it is nonetheless a complex and nuanced cautionary tale about the effects of selfishness or lack of empathy in relationships.