#1038: BAUMBACH, Noah: Marriage Story (2019)
BAUMBACH, Noah (United States)
Marriage Story [2019]
Spine #1038
Blu-ray
The Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring notes on the film by novelist Linn Ullmann.
Trailers
Extras Rating (0-40):
Marriage Story [2019]
Spine #1038
Blu-ray
A love story about divorce. A marriage coming apart and a family coming together. Marriage Story is a hilarious and harrowing, sharply observed, and deeply compassionate film from the acclaimed writer-director Noah Baumbach. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson deliver tour-de-force performances as Charlie, a charismatic New York theater director wedded to his work, and Nicole, an actor who is ready to change her own life. Their hopes for an amicable divorce fade as they are drawn into a system that pits them against each other and forces them to redefine their relationship and their family. Featuring bravura, finely drawn supporting turns from Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, and Laura Dern — who won an Academy Award for her performance here — as the trio of lawyers who preside over the legal battle. Marriage Story (nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture) is a work of both intimacy and scope that ultimately invokes hope amid the ruins.
137 minutes
Color
5.1 Surround
1:66:1 aspect ratio
5.1 Surround
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2020
Director/Writer
Noah Baumbach was 40 when he wrote and directed Marriage Story.
Other Baumbach films in the Collection:
#394: Kicking And Screaming (1995)
#845: The Squid And The Whale (2005)
#681: Frances Ha (2013)
The Film
Other Baumbach films in the Collection:
#394: Kicking And Screaming (1995)
#845: The Squid And The Whale (2005)
#681: Frances Ha (2013)
The Film
Criterion nicely includes facsimiles of both Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson)’s handwritten notes, meant to be read aloud during their meeting with the mediator (Robert Smigel). Nicole refuses to read hers, and — surprise! — two hours later it is their reading-challenged son, Henry (Azhy Robertson) who is making a brave effort at reading the note. Charlie walks in mid-sentence and — a bit choked-up — reads Nicole’s deeply personal take on Charlie.
Kleenix alert.
**
Baumbach has made a masterpiece here — filled with those alternately tender, wild, hostile, mundane moments that make up our lives and relationships.
Perhaps Divorce Story would have made a more precise title — but it works both ways. We see the marriage through the divorce and vice versa.
Rounding out the cast are the three witchy attorneys (as Linn Ullmann so beautifully puts it [see below]): Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern), Bert Spitz (Alan Alda), and Jay Marotta (Ray Liotta); Nicole’s mother, Sandra (Julie Hagerty) and sister, Cassie (Merritt Wever) … (watch for the Sondheim songs from Company: “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” sung by the female trio; and “Being Alive,” sung by Driver.)
Randy Newman’s score is pitch-perfect.
**
Note the 1:66:1 aspect ratio — ideal for a film with so many close-ups.
Film Rating (0-60):
57
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring notes on the film by novelist Linn Ullmann.
Reading Ullmann’s essay brings to mind the absent father (her dad: Ingmar Bergman, a prototype for the missing dad) … Nora — Dern’s character — says “let’s face it; the idea of a ‘good father’ was only invented like 30 years ago!”
Commentary
None.
Interview
With Baumbach.
“There are no heroes, and no villains. Not even the three lawyers (recalling the three witches in Macbeth), who make an even greater mess of an already messy situation, are villains. Everyone’s just doing their best.”
Commentary
None.
Interview
With Baumbach.
Interview
With actors Johansson, Driver, Dern, Alda, Hagerty, and Liotta.
The Filmmakers
A program about the production of the film, featuring interviews with Baumbach, editor Jennifer Lame, production designer Jade Healy, costume designer Mark Bridges, and producer David Heyman.
The Making of “Marriage Story”
The Filmmakers
A program about the production of the film, featuring interviews with Baumbach, editor Jennifer Lame, production designer Jade Healy, costume designer Mark Bridges, and producer David Heyman.
The Making of “Marriage Story”
A program featuring behind-the-scenes footage.
97 minutes? Really?
Baumbach is fond of demanding many, many takes; endlessly discussing an actor’s characterization, etc. We could have seen this in ten minutes worth of conspiratorial footage.
Always fun to glimpse the top-notch session players — here in the Neumann Scoring Stage, named for Randy’s uncles, Alfred and Lionel.
Program
Featuring Baumbach walking viewers through a key location from the film.
Program
Featuring Baumbach walking viewers through a key location from the film.
The ugly barely-decorated L.A. apartment where the big blow-up scene occurs.
NICOLE
“I am not like my mother.”
CHARLIE
“You are! And you’re like my father. You’re also like my mother. You’re all the bad things about all of these people!”
Trailers
Extras Rating (0-40):
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