MARRIAGE STORY (2019) ****

Noah Baumbach’s gripping, engrossing, devastating Marriage Story is reminiscent of a John Cassavetes movie.  At times it feels like a documentary.  You’re like an invisible observer on the frontlines of a family in crisis.  You get to see the implosion of a marriage firsthand and witness all the little painful details that most movies leave out.  This is one of the best films of the year.

It starts out with Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) in therapy.  There’s an argument, and she storms out of the office.  They know the marriage is over and decide to do things amicably and not hassle with lawyers.  Then she decides, well… maybe I’ll get a lawyer.  Charlie, perplexed by her decision, scrambles to get a lawyer of his own.  As with any fight, whether it takes place in the kitchen or the courtroom, things escalate, and Charlie and Nicole try to figure out how to carry on with their lives as they drift apart from each other.  

This is the most realistic depiction of divorce I have ever seen in a motion picture.  It almost plays like a how-to manual on what to do the moment you and your spouse separate.  Honestly, Baumbach should’ve called this Divorce Story.  I imagine it will hit close to home for a lot of people.  I know there will be a lot of triggering elements here for many viewers, but if you need a good, cathartic, ugly cry, Marriage Story will do the trick.

The film is often painful, uncomfortable, and cringe-inducing, but then again, so is real life.  The big fight scene between Charlie and Nicole feels spontaneous, unscripted, natural, and organic.  You never see the acting or hear the dialogue.  You’re just watching two people you’ve grown to care about having mutual meltdowns.  Driver and Johansson are stellar throughout the movie, but they are truly next level in this particular sequence.

My favorite scene though comes when Johansson gets her sister to serve Driver the divorce papers.  This sequence is constructed like something out of a horror movie and is just as effective.  The tension builds and builds, and the punchline is unexpected and devastating.  

The supporting cast is aces too.  Ray Liotta is great as Driver’s pit bull of an attorney, as is Alan Alda as his congenial first lawyer.  Julie Hagerty gets a lot of laughs as the mother in-law who plays both sides.  It’s Laura Dern who steals the movie though as Johansson’s ball-breaking attorney.  Remember in The Last Jedi when she kamikazed herself into Kylo Ren’s fleet?  This time out, she does a Holdo Maneuver on his finances.  

The only debit to an otherwise perfect film is Randy Newman’s intrusive musical score.  It rarely fits the scene and often threatens to drown out the dialogue.  Other than that, Marriage Story is, for me, Baumbach’s best work.