Story of a marriage

To talk to you about Story of a marriage You have to talk about expectations. From the expectations of both spouses and also from mine before watching the movie.

When I read that Adam Driver is a worthy competitor to snatch the Oscar from Joaquin Phoenix as Joker, what I expect is a lot. Furthermore, we find Scarlett Johansson who is on her way to becoming the leading actress of our time. It was normal to wait a lot, a lot.

Both performers, following a script by Noah Baumbach, somehow remember the golden age of Woody Allen and were inspired by his real-life divorce with Jennifer Jason Leigh. Nothing could disappoint, the film is good, of important intellectual and emotional relevance.

However, in the end you realize that, For both hobbies and love, it is best not to reveal too much in advance how much you are going to enjoy them. It’s best to watch and wait.

Marriage Story: Nicole and Charlie

The story is simple. It is the story of a marriage. On the surface, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) are an ideal couple. They have lived together for ten years and have an adorable 8-year-old son.

They live in New York, where Charlie has established quite a reputation as a director of fashionable works, of which Nicole is often the muse. When the movie starts, Nicole and Charlie read, each on their own, what they like about their partner and what they don’t, but focusing on the conciliatory aspect of telling it.

It seems like a declaration of love after years of marriage, a kind of experiment like Marina Abramovich and Ulay that many intellectuals and people related to art usually do. But none of that. It is not an artistic mediation, but rather a psychological and almost judicial one, although the couple tries to avoid it.

History does not give time to see the good moments of the couple because we are rushed into divorce. A divorce with an 8 year old son and different jobs to deal with and each of them in a different part of the country.

Conflict of interests

ANDThe conflict is exacerbated when Nicole accepts the offer to go to Los Angeles, the city where he grew up and where his family lives. She wants to film a pilot program for a television series in which she would play an important role. She is motivated by the idea of ​​being a director as well as an actress. She aspires to feel like she is someone on her own after so many years alongside Charlie in the theater.

Therefore, He intends to settle in the city of Los Angeles with his son. If she wants to have joint parental custody, Charlie must also have a residence there.

However, Charlie wants his son to live in New York with him, where the family has normally resided. The lawyers will be involved in this fight much more than the protagonists (Alan Alda and Ray Liotta on Charlie’s side and Laura Dern on Nicole’s side).

Marriage story: Seeing two people behind the lens

Seeing two people tearing themselves apart over a divorce and not feeling completely moved draws attention. The film surprises and convinces without transmitting a very high emotional charge.

In this sense, not all heartbreaking shots should affect the viewer. It is much better to sometimes understand, rather than feel. This blocks the ability to empathize more with one spouse or another.

Noah Baumbach’s strength comes from taking a certain distance from each of his two main characters, looking at them objectively.as if he refused to be perverted by emotions that could affect his judgment.

The shot taking is exemplary in this sense. Everyone has their reasons, their flaws, their weaknesses… but also their qualities.

They will be kidnapped in some way by external influences represented by the lawyers, who will come to pervert their judgment, their situation to transform it into a fight. It seems that Noah Baumbach measured everything so that equality was perfect between the two components of this couple in the separation process.

This almost absolute dominance could be considered by many as a weakness of the film. Everything is so balanced that it ends up losing the human factor, the free will of this man and this woman.who are seen, sometimes, almost more as subjects of study than as characters starring in a drama.

Story of a marriage: the story of intimate frustrations

Noah Baumbach manages to subtly modulate the drift of the feelings in which the characters are drawn. There are strong scenes, but you sense that nothing is going to get worse, although there are still higher points in violence and drama.

This couple expresses not only the sum of the small and large intimate frustrations that have accumulated over the years, but also the rivalry between New York and Los Angeles, between theater and television or even between the jurisdictions of two different state.

Their arguments sound like daggers that do not reach the other and do not seem to come from the person speaking. They try to blame each other for many things, but it is difficult to describe the end of love. Of admiration and passion after so many years of wanting to blame the other without leaving yourself torn inside.

Balance and moderation is the most romantic

As moving as it is, a very funny movie at times. The scene in which Nicole’s mother (Julie Hagerty) and sister (Merritt Wever) arrange for Charlie to officially receive the divorce petition is straight-up absurdist humor. There is this balance, extremely difficult to achieve, between drama and comedy.

With those juggles, between drama and comedy, we reach a situation of understanding where, suddenly, the film explodes in emotionality. There the film answers my expectations of the film.

The director did not want to shock us with the heartbreaking process, but with the nostalgic return to normality, knowing that everything was already broken. That’s when What one did for the other appears more real and increases the courage to divorce when it is necessary, when one truly loves a family.

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