Marriage Story

Second film of the week that has generated a real buzz and garnered awards and nominations from all directions.

To be honest it wasn’t the film I expected, Marriage Story is a quirky black comedy based on the most humorous of subjects divorce! Specifically the divorce of Charlie and Nicole a New York theatre director and a Californian born actress.

The film’s real strength is its performances, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson show why they such respected actors, both delivering nuanced, humorous and thoughtful performances. But they are also really well supported, especially by Laura Dern and Alan Alda who portray very different divorce lawyers.

It does an interesting job of blurring the complexities of a divorce especially when the couple has grown apart, rather than any kind of catastrophic failure. It shows beautifully the emotional swings that you’d expect as they go through the process, from gentle breakdown to lawyer inspired anger and back again, one scene in particular sees Driver and Johansson at their very best as they have a particularly angry exchange in Charlie’s flat.

It is a very different and original film, the kind of thing Netflix (and Amazon) are allowing to be made that maybe big studios aren’t and long may it continue.

Marriage Story wasn’t a film that I loved and that is perhaps because the subject matter itself is difficult to “love” but certainly something I admired. It’s well written, more humorous than I expected and filled with excellent performances as Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, continue to impress, but maybe a bit like Charlie and Nicole lots to admire, but just not love.