Poignant, real and convincing performances

Rating: 9/10 (24 March 2020)

Marriage Story - Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) could have been a star after a successful debut film, but chose to join Charlie (Adam Driver), a talented and rising theatre director whose vision she shares and eventually marries. With the passage of time Charlie grows prolific with fame, maturity and authority, whilst Nicole settles down to become the leading lady of his productions and creative pursuits, living his dreams as hers too. For many years, she remains agnostic to her own aspirations, becoming Charlie's muse, wife, a mother to the lovable Henry and a caring housewife.
It's business as usual until Nicole realizes that she has sacrificed far too much of her own self for Charlie but the latter has taken her devotion for granted. In the process, she has lost her individuality and almost forgotten who she actually is, and he doesn't care. She decides to file for divorce from Charlie amid the seemingly happy and stable status, taking him off guard completely. Marriage Story is a narrative of the common people shaken up by the disruption of a happy matrimony and a humdrum life. It is a deep dive into the character of a stereotypically patriarchal and almost misogynistic head of the family who believes everything is normal as long as the family seems to be happy and old, unfulfilled promises made aren't being dug into. It is also about the predicament of a child who is facing a family meltdown, watching helplessly as the parents drift apart.
The treatment of the sombre subject by the writer and director Noah Baumbach is the strength of Marriage Story, it is kept natural, sans melodrama. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson bring out the depths of their respective characters with ease and conviction. The sequence where the couple finally confronts each other releasing the pent up agony and frustration is hugely believable and poignant. Laura Dern's essay of Nicole's lawyer Nora Fanshaw is sterling, especially the scene where she counsels Nicole about the perceptions about mothers and their model code of conduct.