Film Review: "Marriage Story" (2019).

From Netflix and the director of The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha comes Marriage Story. This comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach. The film is an incisive and compassionate look at a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.

In 2016, during post-production of The Meyerowitz Stories, Baumbach first conceived the idea of the film based on his divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, as well as his parents' divorce. He began to research the subject, and met with three-time collaborator Adam Driver to discuss the role. Speaking of writing the film, Baumbach said: "I have a real connection to the material ... [but] I was also at a time in my life where many of my friends were getting divorced. I saw it as an opportunity to do something more expansive, so I did a lot of research. I interviewed a lot of my friends, and friends of friends, and then also lawyers, judges, mediators." Following the release of the film, Baumbach said, "I showed [Leigh] the script and then I showed her the movie a little bit ago. She likes it a lot." In November 2017, it was announced Driver and Scarlett Johansson set to star. In addition, Netflix would produce and distribute the film. Driver and Johansson were cast before the script was complete. Hence, throughout the script writing process, the cast collaborated with Baumbach on certain character aspects. By mid January 2018, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Azhy Robertson, Julie Hagerty, Merritt Wever, Mark O'Brien, and Wallace Shawn rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced, and lasted forty-seven days. Filming took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles, California, and New York City. Persona (1966) served as a visual influence for the film. The film was the first Netflix film to be granted the longest theatrical release of thirty days. Netflix reopened the previously closed Paris Theatre in New York to exclusively play the film.

It's the movie's pitch-perfect performances, especially from Johansson and Driver, that provide a rock-solid foundation for its tale of crumbling relationships. Don't look now, but Johansson and Driver's days as Black Widow and Kylo Ren may be coming to an end.

Marriage Story is a piercingly honest, acidly witty look at divorce and its impact on a family. It's a rare film that can be convincingly tender, bitterly funny, and ruthlessly cutting over the course of fewer than a hundred and thirty-six minutes. The film not only manages this, it also contains moments that sock you with all three qualities at the same time.The film is domestic tragedy recollected as comedy: a film whose catalog of deceits and embarrassments, and of love pratfalling over itself, makes it as painful as it is funny. A wry exercise in acute observation and emotional distancing, Baumbach's film represents what's best in autobiographical filmmaking. Baumbach has created an unforgettable film about horrifyingly human people.

Simon says Marriage Story receives:

Also, see my review for Frances Ha.