A familiar tale of woe presented like a tall tale
Marriage Story is something of an anomaly. It is, at times, infuriatingly slow and unrelatable, and at others, engrossing and heart wrenching and hysterical. The film isn’t about a marriage, so much as the end of one.
It’s a common story, one that most people have some experience with, but somehow, the movie pulls away from it, likely due to the extreme privilege of the characters.
It’s a celebrity divorce, after all. The costs are astronomical, many of the problems are absurd, but the characters are undeniably human. I suppose there are elements of Marriage Story in the end of every relationship. A friend of mine mentioned to me that the film reminded him of his divorce, which is strange considering neither of them were wealthy, entertainers, or parents.
I’ve been quoting Roger Ebert a lot lately but he once said, “it’s not what movies are about, it’s how they are about them.” The exact elements may not line up for most people but they can remember how they felt in the moment. In his endless fount of wisdom, Ebert also said, “Entertainment is about the way things should be. Art is about the way they are.”
Marriage Story is certainly art.
Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) have fallen out of love at the beginning of the film. Voiceovers tells us how they once felt about each other, as we watch vignettes of their lives and their work. Nicole is an actress who found some success in a Hollywood teen comedy when she was young, and later fell in love with Charlie, an up-and-coming theater director in New York.
They spend some of their lives together as Charlie builds his theater company and name, but Nicole longs for the West coast where her family lives and her career was left. She continued to develop her craft in New York as a mainstay of Charlie’s casting. Charlie calls her his “favorite actress.”
But they grow apart, as Charlie is focused on his work and Nicole becomes focused on their young son. Eventually, they decide to separate. Of course, they initially agree to be amicable, but after Nicole returns to Los Angeles with their child to work on a television show, she is given the name of a lawyer, who convinces her to serve Charlie with papers. A difficult divorce soon ensues.
The biggest strength of the film is the screenwriting. Everything is set up and paid off in a satisfying, capable manner. None of the characters behave out of character, nothing they do is inherently irrational. The film shows two imperfect people making poor choices, sometimes in retaliation for an unintentional slight.
Because the script gives us such an intimate look at the characters, we understand how their story could come to each point in the story. But the film also feels long.
This might be intentional as watching the characters struggle as they do is difficult, and we want the ordeal to be over because they want the ordeal to be over, and it does help us relate more to the characters.
But there is an inherent distance. Most of the country could not afford the lawyers, the plane tickets, the realities of living on two separate coasts. In the hands of a lesser cast and director, this could make the film feel a lot more out of reach.
The fact it doesn’t is a testament to everyone involved in the project. This is also bitterly funny, in ways that are often unexpected. The film could easily have been an opportunity to wallow in misery, but it isn’t thanks to the levity included in the script.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the film, besides that lawyers are the worst kind of people, is that good intentions don’t amount to much when goals are so disparate. Sometimes there’s nothing to be done, and no amount of flexibility will change reality.
Even the best of relationships are trying and if both members aren’t actively working for the other person, eventually the relationship will end.
The end isn’t always the end, of course. It’s just the beginning of something new, something different, something harder. As is said throughout the film, divorce is terrible.
But it will be over eventually.