Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach
*** 1/2 (three and a half stars)
RATED R
I had all but given up on Noah Baumbach.
Over the past 25 years, the films of Noah Baumbach have alternately attracted me as well as kept me a bit at arms length. From his debut feature "Kicking And Screaming" (1995), a tale of post-collegiate ennui, I knew that what I was seeing was indeed idiosyncratic from its own artistic point of view and dealt with subject matter that held immediate interest (especially with that film, the characters were around the same age and experiencing some of the same issues as myself). However, there was something rather self-congratulatory about the execution. That somehow Baumbach was operating a tad above the material rather than operating from deeply within it. It almost contained an air of superiority and as much as I liked the film, it was also off-putting.
And so it has been between myself and Baumbach's films. Some of which reveled within their own honesty and wit, including the lovely romantic comedy "Mr. Jealousy" (1997) and the excellent, blisteringly perceptive "While We're Young" (2014). But quite a number of his films really rubbed me the wrong way, including the well meaning but over-rated "Greenberg" (2010) and especially, the odious, downright terribly self-congratulatory "Frances Ha" (2013) and "Mistress America" (2015), each of which foisted Greta Gerwig upon me in ways that have only made me reject her as I am absolutely confounded by whatever appeal she holds.
My problem with those films just stemmed from this nagging feeling that Noah Baumbach, while undeniably talented and skilled as a writer and filmmaker, knows how talented and skilled he is, therefore inserting that certain smug superiority that, for me, interferes with the honestly of the stories he is trying to tell. If he only allowed himself to let his guard down, to get messy, to deeply feel the heart and soul of his stories, then we'd really have something. With "Marriage Story," the film that I have been long waiting for from Baumbach has finally arrived.
Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" is his finest film in years and easily his best since his masterpiece, the divorce drama "The Squid And The Whale" (2005). Like that film, he returns to the world of divorce as this film was inspired by his own marital disillusion from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh as "The Squid And The Whale" was inspired by hi sown parents' divorce. In returning to the benchmark events of his own life, Baumbach has more than allowed himself to perform some serious soul searching, which in this case, has made his art and fimmaking more bracing, urgent and heartbreaking than he typically allows himself. And for us, it is bracing, often aching cinema.
"Marriage Story" stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as New York based married couple Charlie and Nicole Barber, where he is a prominent theater director and she is a former teen film actress who stars in his productions.
Having marital troubles and after attempting a stab at counseling, Nicole, who is offered a starring role in a new television pilot, decides to return to live with her Mother (Julie Hagerty) in West Hollywood...and takes their young son Henry (Azhy Robertson) with her while Charlie remains in New York to mount his next Broadway bound play. Despite agreeing to have an amicable split and resist lawyers, Nicole does meet, and eventually hires, family lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) and soon files divorce papers to a bewildered Charlie.
The remainder of the film chronicles, in a series of vignettes, the divorce of Charlie and Nicole as he is served papers at his Mother-In Law's home, obtains a small LA apartment, spends considerable time and money flying back and forth between New York and California, hiring one lawyer (Alan Alda) and then another (Ray Liotta) all the while trying to direct his Broadway play, be a nurturing Father to Henry and gain a greater understanding as to how his family came to fall apart and how Nicole fell out of love with him.
As a companion film to "The Squid And The Whale," Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" finds the filmmaker operating in an atmosphere where self-serving irony is not allowed and nerve endings are bravely exposed. It is an appropriately and emotionally messy film, one where abrupt tonal shifts from stark drama to near slapstick feel as risky and as real as life itself, as evidenced in a sequence where Charlie is given the divorce papers at his Mother-In-Law's home and another during which he and Henry endure an excruciating day and evening visit from an appointed family evaluator.
While "Marriage Story" does not equal the painful, intensely felt depths of the classic divorce drama in Writer/Director Robert Benton's "Kramer Vs. Kramer" (1979), what Baumbach does achieve akin to that film was to place the emphasis upon Charlie, as the artistically self-absorbed husband and Father forced to become entangled in a world he never imagined for himself and his family.
As Charlie, Adam Driver again proves himself to being a compulsively watchable and magnetically compelling actor, as he creates a character who profoundly earns our sympathy even when we wish to just shake him into reality. And that indeed is the engine to this character as Charlie feels to be a man who wishes his life could exist just as the plays he directs--where he is the ultimate world builder and overseer who can controls every solitary moment to his liking and perfection, which gives him emotional and psychological stability.
Yet, once Nicole leaves him and the divorce proceedings begin forcing him to navigate a cauldron of a legal system where every decision feels to fly out of his hands, Charlie is increasingly undone and therefore, forced to adapt to being out of control and powerless. All the while, he repeatedly announces, "But, were a New York family," as if saying the words over and again will force the world inside of his head to become reality, if only it were that easy. The theater director who has earned a MacArthur Fellowship grant and the brass ring to direct a full fledged Broadway play is now thrust into the unforgiving, unpredictable world where reality cannot be scripted and life itself cannot be directed.
As Nicole, Scarlett Johansson is marvelous, and just as with her sparkling performance in Taika Waititi's "Jojo Rabbit" (2019), she appears joyously liberated from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as she is now allowed to have the freedom hit performance notes that are typically stifled.
It is indeed a prickly performance, one loaded with righteous (and even self-righteous) resentment and anger but again, it is a seriously liberated one. In an early scene with her lawyer, Nicole launches into an extended monologue during which she voices and charts the evolution of her life with Charlie. It is as if we are witnessing her self-revelations in real time as Nicole remembrances ignite a newfound sense of wanting to, at long last, reclaim the life she now feels she abandoned at the expense of building Charlie's life.
Leaving New York for California was the line in the sand and every decision thereafter is clearly Nicole growing sense of empowerment, self-reliance and self-confidence and now that she has begun to find herself, her uncompromising nature in returning to a past that she had no role in creating in now unthinkable. Johansson is equal to every moment, every shift, every growth spurt that Nicole experiences, as we see a character who is now unrepentantly ready to finally direct her own life.
As Nicole rises, Charlie flounders but "Marriage Story" allows him to finally see outside of himself for once and for the betterment of whatever relationship he hopes to continue with his son. In a way, it is humorous to witness both characters operate and behave with each other as if within a play that Charlie may have originally written but was re-written by Nicole unbeknownst to him. Their language and body language is theatrical, all utilized as shields to protect themselves emotionally...that is until they are wholly unable and then, they explode as in a brilliant, blistering extended sequence late in the film where an amicable discussion turns to fury in whiplash rawness.
While I would never wish misery upon anyone within their lives and I certainly do not believe that one needs to be miserable to create great art, in the case of "Marriage Story," I think that his real life pain truly invigorated the emotional reality of his cinematic storytelling, even possibly allowing us a window into his life and personality, making for a film that feels to be self-critical, apologetic and even hopeful.
Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" is strong, seriously presented slice-of-life, yet this time, there are no invisible quotation marks around the proceedings, no self-conscious irony or distance. Just a rightful sense of heart, soul and humanity.
No comments:
Post a Comment