An incredibly natural film that nails every aspect it tries its hand at

Rating: 9/10 (2 February 2020)

It's rare that films come along like 'Marriage Story' that are so natural and well made that you don't even feel like you're watching a movie, you feel like you're watching real people in real life. Everything about this film, the acting, the writing, the direction, all combine to create something quite masterful. Every hand this movie tries itself at it nails. Whether it is trying to be funny, heart-breaking or thought-provoking, it always gets it right. This is a really good movie.
Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Laura Dern have all been nominated for Academy Awards in their respective acting categories. They all gave masterful performances and deserve the genuine shot at winning they all have. Best Supporting Actress is always the weakest category and it typically tends to come down to who gets the most screen time, so I suspect Dern will take home the statue. The other two suffer from having very strong performances to compete against and so both may come up short. I would be happy to see either of them cause the upset though because they are excellent in this film.
'Marriage Story' is told in a way which asks you to side with either the man or the woman. I would be very interested to poll people on this movie and see who they sided with and thought was being more reasonable. It's a tough one but I know I sided with Driver's character a lot more. Whether men tend to side with the man and women with the woman, or not, I'd be interested to know.
The thing I was most shocked about was how funny the film was able to be. Sometimes it was just a random line that cracked me up, sometimes it was an entire scene. There is a scene between Driver and Martha Kelly that had me in stitches. 'Marriage Story' is unquestionably one of the best films of 2019 and is well deserving of its Best Picture nomination.