The middle-aged and the restless

Rating: 9/10 (6 February 2020)

Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" begins with a slideshow of a man and a woman over which we hear narrations, each of them describing themselves and praising their family qualities. These descriptions are carefully written, their qualities grand beyond family life, is like they are trying to sell themselves for a job interview. But no, these are husband Charlie (Adam Driver) and wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and the descriptions are what they each wrote about the other. They are in a counseling office--they are getting a divorce.
Two qualities make this movie great. First of all, is the balancing act between the two parties and the second is its unpretentiousness. "Marriage Story" has no subliminal meaning, the divorcing couple don't act like some sort of higher symbols--what you see is what you get. The balancing act, though, happens on multiple levels. For starters, is the fact that Nicole and Charlie still love and collaborate with each other despite the divorcing act--which started without lawyers--becomes an interstate case between Los Angeles and New York--two polarizing states, both geographically and culturally. Then, is the fact that you don't know who to root for. The divorce is as complicated for the viewers as it is for the characters.
The reason for divorcing is nothing too tragic--typical middle-to-upper class stuff. Charlie is an acclaimed theater director respected on Broadway and despite not being born on the East Coast he is "more of a New Yorker than a New Yorker" according to his wife. Nicole is an actress playing in his productions but who feels the need to break free. Her ambitions are more Hollywood and LA than NY. They also have a son, Henry (Azhy Robertson), caught in between. Happily, he is too young to suffer too much.
All the performances are astounding. Driver as the workaholic but caring husband, Laura Dern as Nora Fanshaw--Nicole's LA smart, upper-class feminist lawyer--but Johansson steals the show. Her ability to direct her emotions--crying, angry, laughing, regretful--is brilliant. Her performance truly is theatrical--tragic, dramatic but not overly-dramatic. A definite Oscar contender. Throughout the movie, as the divorce escalates, there is clearly a slight bias towards Nicole, but Baumbach's on-point writing is careful so that Charlie doesn't come off as a complete loser. His career is thriving and his unusual friendship with his mother-in-law offers some of the funniest and warmest moments in the movie. She is the one who secretly recommended him an affordable lawyer. She wasn't doing that because she is against Nicole, but because he likes Charlie too much.
While this movie is straight-forward, there is a particular lengthy scene worth mentioning (no, is not the fighting scene albeit it was perfectly executed). The scene in which an appointed expert evaluator monitors a night in with Charlie and Henry is as strange as such an experience is expected to be. Such things involve the evaluator watching the family's natural behavior but can anyone act naturally under such conditions? The scene ends with a clever "accident" caused by such a procedure and it no doubt lead the evaluator to many misunderstandings.
"Marriage Story" is no doubt a movie that could happen to only a middle-to-upper class couple. Charlie and Nicole--the middle-aged and the restless--are people who are both artistically-inclined and privileged enough to want more specific things. And with a child bonding them, their official separation feels like it exists only on paper. But sometimes that is enough. Even if, in the end, a winner was declared, Nicole's career was floating and Charlie was surrounded by his friends and peers, they both lost.