The first reports from the Venice Film Festival proclaimed with almost neo-religious zeal that the Savior arrived - in the form of a drama comedy signed by New York filmmaker Noah Baumbach.
After that, the expectations assumed astronomical heights, and no, of course, Marriage Story may be a bit repetitive in some way, but at the same time… just, just wonderful.
Okay, that might have been the catch, but when two of your favorite actors and a ditto director go in creative arm, it can't be wrong.
Marriage story places itself somewhere in the creative field that is fenced in by Woody Allen's oneliner existentialism and Ingmar Bergman's heavier views on the complexity of life and man.
In short, a relationship drama with both gravity and humor.
In the many interviews that edited Marriage Story's release, Noah Baumbach has talked about his particular cinematic relationship with the Swedish film giant, and it certainly rhymes when he says that Scenes from a marriage formed a school (it is hinted at in the film too) but now belongs Baumbach is still the Jewish, New York-intelligentian and then you have got Woody with the breast milk. Which is by no means a problem (except for those who have been affected by the witch-hunt of the old sad comedian in recent years), at least not if you go on clever word duels set in a legitimate intellectual atmosphere.
Baumbach has even borrowed Woody Allen's (and many New York borers') attitude toward the supposedly superficial and sun-drenched Los Angeles, leaving the two different cities a kind of root in the depiction of Charlie's and Nicole's personalities. After this sentence, Woody Allen's name should not be mentioned any more, I promise, but it's fun to see how Baumbach lends his way of letting the actors in and out of the so-called negative room (what is not seen in the frame) during the mouth-cutting: So stand and talk from a nearby room when the camera is in another.
Well, despite clear references, Noah Baumbach is obviously full of winning character. The breakthrough came 14 years ago with The squid and the whale, which was almost too good. The filmmaker was beaten to death and nothing he has done after it has reached the same height, but many of his subsequent works are still sniffing there just below. Like Frances Ha who he created together with colleague and partner Greta Gerwig, like The Meyerowitz Stories and like this where we get to follow in a drawn-out divorce between two creative and egocentric people: a story that is partly based on Baumbach's experiences during the separation from actor Jennifer Jason Leigh (it should be added that it is not a revenge movie, here both parties may come to speak equally).
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson (and Baumbach's script) take us on an emotional roller coaster trip through the big apple's cultural circles to the star shine of the west coast. From flashbacks to the fluffiness of love, to the legal hell of the custody dispute. There are scenes where the mood can turn on a five-ring. From hug to ear file in one millisecond.
Anyone who has been involved in trying to keep a clean room in a separation, so that the children do not get trapped, will feel the frustration.
In addition, we get a bunch of lovely characters, such as Alan Alda's homegrown lawyer and Laura Dern's sharp divorce lawyer, who raise the mood between the deployed verbal duels.
Because no, this is not heartbreaking as a deep-sore can be. Baumbach, after all, works in the inventive tradition, rather than the bleeding. But his naked view of relationships is nevertheless so full of lumpy character that the score guy sits like a bang.