Noah Baumbach’s career as the millennials’ answer to Woody Allen hasn’t always been a piece of cake: sometimes he’s erred on the side of empathy-gap (Greenberg), sometimes on the side of wilful hipsterism (Frances Ha) and sometimes on pseudo-literariness (The Meyerowitz Stories). But with Marriage Story he hit the nail on the head so hard it almost hurts.
First and foremost, Marriage Story’s brilliance lies in its relatability. Who hasn’t been through a painful breakup, with all the attendant subsurface miseries and emotional politics – even those of us who aren’t bicoastal entertainment-industry professionals with access to large amounts of ready cash?
It is well known that Baumbach drew on the breakup of his own marriage with Jennifer Jason Leigh (though a number of telling details are different, such as the age of the child involved). Be that as it may, he has wrought impressive screen alchemy from what we would have to assume was a dispiriting experience. His protagonists are a male director of avant garde theatre in New York and a female actor who takes the opportunity of a TV pilot to return to a high-profile career in LA. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are near perfect casting for the roles: he brings his now customary narrow-eyed intensity to the theatre guy, and Johansson (herself emerging from an ambiguous career phase in which she seemed to alternate superhero bit parts with Woody Allen films) is resolute and articulate as the woman aiming to broaden her horizons.
If there’s a criticism to be made of Baumbach’s anatomy of divorce it is that, while he makes a big point of giving each side equal gripe time – including an absolutely extraordinary scene in which a tearful Johansson gives her lawyer a potted history of the relationship – in the end, the film is essentially in his corner. As it goes on, it’s the threat of him losing custody of his child that motivates the drama. Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore tweeted about what she called its “male narcissism as lovable” and it’s hard to disagree. Baumbach would probably argue that that is the point: his alter ego is a self-absorbed self-deceiver and deserves what he gets.
I give Baumbach the benefit of the doubt, if only because the rest of the film is so brilliantly observed. The gradual transition from “we want to be friends” to a savage courtroom punch-up is so astutely done you barely notice it happening. The three lawyers on whom the two separatees load their unexpressed aggression are all hilariously conceived and superbly acted: Laura Dern’s smiling predator and Alan Alda’s bumbling pragmatist have got the most attention, but I can’t help admiring Ray Liotta’s brutal shark, his burning eyes getting their best workout in years. And casting Julie Hagerty of Airplane! renown as Johansson’s flaky mum is inspired on a whole other level.
In Marriage Story, Baumbach has found his equivalent to Allen’s Annie Hall: a vehicle that transforms his own specific relationship experience into material of wider relevance. It’s a difficult trick to pull off, and he has succeeded wonderfully.
