Heartbreaking Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2020)

Marriage Story is directed by Noah Baumbach and stars Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Ray Liotta and Azhy Robertson and is about the struggle and eventual split of the married couple played by Driver and Johansson. I love this movie. Noah Baumbach' direction is some of the sharpest I saw in 2019. You can tell he put time into every single detail which for some people might not mean anything or maybe it's so seem less that you don't even notice that it has an effect on what's happening. He does this thing with the movie where in the first half he kind of makes you side with Johansson, while in the second half he makes you side with Driver. You can really see that they are trying to work things out so that they're family isn't torn apart and so that their kid isn't affected negatively. Even if you haven't been through that you might be able to connect. Johansson gives the performance of her career in my opinion as she brings this humanity and vulnerability to this character which many other actresses could have easily not gotten through with the emotion or make her the villain some how but Johansson finds the perfect balance here and could not see anyone else playing her character. Adam Driver gives another amazing performance here. I truly felt for his character as he's getting dragged into this legal mess that is a divorce. I gotta give props to Ray Liotta and Laura Dern who make me hate their characters but still make them so human and understandable. The look of the film is unique with the framing of the film making it seem like it was filmed in a video camera and so does the color in the film. The score too is incredible and I have to say without the music of Randy Newman some the emotional scenes could have felt cringeworthy or unwarranted but thankfully they land. I watched for the third time recently looking for flaws and I could not find a single one. I am going to give it a 10/10