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Movie Review – Marriage Story
Table of Contents
My Rating – 4.5 out of 5
Plot Summary – Marriage Story
If Joker didn’t release in 2019, Marriage Story would have probably walked away with the Best Picture Oscar. It’s that good!!
Scarlett Johansson has given it her all, and it shows. The actress of Black Widow fame showcases her acting chops with such elan that it’s tragic she didn’t win any major award.
Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) are married with a child, with their individual careers pulling them apart in different directions and they choose to get a divorce.
A Mediator asks them to repeat what they saw in each other when they fell in love, and in course of doing that Nicole (Scarlett) walks out in a huff. Though they had initially decided that they won’t involve lawyers to keep the separation non-messy, but first Nicole and then Charlie (Adam Driver) get their lawyers and the legal sparks start to fly.
[blockquote align=”left” author=”Bert”]I want you to know that eventually this will all be over and whatever we win or lose..it will be the two of you having to figure this out together[/blockquote]
Nicole’s lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern in another stupendous role) is a firebrand and the divorce gets messier with accusations and slanders flying around thick and fast. The lawyers gun for each others money and share of custody, while the child Henry, watches in helpless dismay.
[blockquote align=”left” author=”Ted”] Criminal lawyers see bad people at their best, divorce lawyers see good people at their worst[/blockquote]
The movie ends, holding out hope for all dysfunctional marriages – that even two good people may not be good in marriage but the marriage may be good for them! Particularly in today’s date and age when men and women are looking for their identities more and more and in establishing those identities, women are deciding the course of their lives. Careers, aspirations etc. sometimes take them on a trajectory different from that of their partners and gone are the days when the wives demurely followed their husbands wherever they might lead them, and rightly so.
[blockquote align=”left” author=”Charlie reading Nicole’s Letter”]I fell in love with him two seconds after I saw him. And I’ll never stop loving him, even though it doesn’t make sense anymore.[/blockquote]
If the husband is a successful director and the wife is a successful actor, they both have the same right to decide which way their lives would go and not unfairly expect only the wife to give up her aspirations in life to tend to home and hearth.
The most outstanding part of this movie are the acting nous displayed by all the characters, it has to be seen to be believed. Even Nicole’s son looks an absolute natural in the role, and plays the part to perfection.
[blockquote align=”left” author=”Nicole”]I never really came alive for myself; I was only feeding his aliveness.[/blockquote]
You’ll share their consternation at the other, swing your sympathies from one to the other but at the end, with moist eyes, you’ll just want to give both of them a hug and maybe cry a little with them….
[blockquote align=”left” author=”Bert Spitz”]Getting divorced with a kid is one of the hardest things to do. It’s like a death without a body.[/blockquote]
Noah Baumbach has done an excellent job directing this (she’s written it too) and is extremely unlucky to not have won more awards. But, thank you Noah, this was very, very good…