90 Minute Build-Up to a Career Best Scene for Both Driver and Johansson

Rating: 9/10 (11 December 2019)

An emotional drama about a divorce is not exactly the kind of plot I usually go for, but what immediately struck me about Marriage Story was the quintessential feeling Baumbach brings to all his films. He has an unparalleled talent in tapping into real life and writing dialogue that feels so incredibly natural and authentic that it makes it easy to forget you're watching a movie at all. We're immediately sucked into the life and relationship of Charlie and Nicole with a monologue each about they love about one another. This is probably the happiest and most uplifting the movie gets. As soon as we're dragged back to the marriage counselling, the bitterness starts to creep in and we're pushed down an ever-winding helter skelter. Once Nicole employs a ruthless lawyer to oversee the divorce, things between them get uglier than ever, and our preconceived notions of who they are and what they meant to each other degrades at a phenomenal speed.
Almost all of Baumbach's films revolve around the concept of communication, or more accurately miscommunication, and Marriage Story is no different. It's fundamentally about a couple who couldn't clearly communicate their wants and needs to one another, and continue to miscommunicate in their break-up. They use lawyers as mouthpieces, saying things and asking for things they don't actually want. They remain polite and nice to each other, holding back their feelings, and letting it build to silent resentment. This all starts from the beginning, with Nicole refusing to read her love letter out to Charlie, and later taking his notes on the chin and bursting into tears as soon as she turns the corner.
And this miscommunication builds and builds and builds in intensity until it has to explode, and it does so in full force right in front of the screen. The pivotal argument in Charlie's apartment single-handedly changed my opinion of this entire movie, and will be used from here on out as a display of how insanely talented both Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are in front of the camera. All the truths between them are laid bare in a verbally violent altercation of the ages, in a single long shot. And yet neither Driver nor Johansson stutter or fall into caricature. They deliver their lines with equal intensity both rage and misery, and it's hard not to feel for both of them and what they've been through together and individually. So intense is the scene that I actually had to take a deep breath afterwards to compose myself. It's so viscerally raw and emotional to watch that I felt drained and overwhelmed by the time it was over.
It goes without saying, but this film was a career best for both Driver and Johansson, each of them slipping into their roles so easily it felt like they were just playing themselves re-enacting difficult parts of their own lives. If I had to pick, Driver gave the best performance, if only because he was given more space to do so. By the movie's mid-point, we definitely spend more time with Charlie than we do Nicole, and Driver makes use of every second. The argument is definitely the high point, for both of them, but Johansson also gets her own monologue to Laura Dern's Nora which is just as emotionally stirring, while Driver gets a subdued but heavy rendition of 'Being Alive' from the musical 'Company', as well as a heartbreaking scene at the end when their son Henry finds the love letter Nicole wrote about him.
As for complaints, in the lead-up to the argument, the movie was starting to lose me. I wasn't bored or finding it slow or dull, nor did I find any of the filmmaking aspects bad or hard to watch. But I found myself just getting so irrationally angry at the whole situation. From a purely factual standpoint, Charlie was the b*stard of the relationship. He was controlling and selfish, and a cheater on top of that. And yet putting Charlie front and centre for much of the movie just made me feel sorry for him. He was blindsided by the divorce, blindsided by Nora's ruthlessness, and blindsided by the financial cost it would have on him, all set on him by Nicole. It becomes very telling how semi-autobiographical this movie is of Baumbach's own divorce, acknowledging he was the cheater, but framing the story in such a way it lays most of the sympathy on his surrogate character, and the hardships Charlie has to go through at Nicole's behest. Putting Nicole behind the scenes for this portion of the movie, and essentially cutting out her side, really made her come off as the resentful b*tch putting Charlie through hell. The fact the movie makes a point that the blame can be laid on both sides almost makes this facet worse. If Nicole had just communicated her problems and desires more clearly and accurately, Charlie wouldn't have had to upend his life against his will and lose almost everything he earned. But I mean, as complaints go, I get the impression this was somewhat intentional on Baumbach's behalf. This was the point. He wants it to seem unfair, he wants it messy and his characters to both look terrible, he wants you angry at the system and how easily exploited it is at one party's loss.
I have no hands-on experience with divorce, but I found way too much of it relatable. We saw our sons in Henry, and we saw each other in Charlie and Nicole, but if nothing else, this movie just strengthened our relationship, showing us how bad things can get if we don't communicate properly and compromise for one another. But it's not a movie I could watch again. It's a hard pill to swallow, and as electrifying as both Driver and Johansson are, it's not enough to endure all that rage and misery again. Currently I'm sitting on a solid 8/10, but that argument scene was so...so...intense that I'm going to give it a whole point to itself. I give Marriage Story a 9/10. I'd advise grabbing a box of tissues before you begin.