2019 Top Ten List #3 Marriage Story

Director Noah Baumbach

MARRIAGE STORY            A                    

USA  (136 mi)  2019  d:  Noah Baumbach

Coming full circle in his career, while The Squid and the Whale (2005) is about a nasty divorce (without lawyers) between two literary parents largely seen through the children’s perspective, as the parental anger is internalized through the kids, returning to familiar territory more than a decade later, featuring the tug and pull on a single child during a contentious divorce, largely seen through the eyes of a show business couple splitting up on opposite coasts, where each film is a devastating emotional train wreck, though this may be Baumbach’s most mature work to date, largely losing the satiric comic humor, which may work as a defense mechanism, finally allowing the excruciating drama to breathe and unfold naturally.  In each film, the director speaks from experience, having endured a particularly contentious divorce between his literary parents as a child, and then experiencing it again firsthand during his 2013 divorce with actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.  Both films are emotionally impactful and career defining, with the earlier film favoring brief comic vignettes that stand out for their incisively expressed anguish and pain, while this later film is an hour longer, administering surges of corrosively exploding disagreements that send shock waves into the audience, as otherwise likeable people become combatants in a theatrically staged court process that feels absurdly designed to humiliate all parties concerned, leaving horrific carnage in its wake, which is supposedly in the best interests of the children.  Somehow, someway, people are supposed to recover from these traumatizing events and become reasonable people who are still capable of instilling love for their mutual children while working out the shared responsibilities of raising them from different homes.  Paying tribute to Ingmar Bergman’s epic SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1973), though never taking sides, what’s uniquely different about this film is the freedom to explore both distinctly different personalities as they themselves are realizing the full extent of what is taking place internally, as no one is more surprised by the changing dynamics than they are, having been living comfortably under one roof, both successful in their own careers, happily combining their forces onstage, becoming part of the existing theater scene in New York.  Baumbach has always been known as an exquisitely gifted writer, as his performance-generated films accentuate a kind of free-flowing dialogue that is both smart and humorous at the same time, finding it easy to personally internalize his experiences cinematically, much like Woody Allen did early in his career when his films were immersed in the cultural spotlight of New York City, developing a kind of East coast chic, yet SQUID was the benchmark of his talents until this film, which is unlike anything else he’s ever done, more open, more accessible, yet emotionally abrasive, where it’s hard not to feel the open vein of heartbreak when you realize love often isn’t enough.           

Ostensibly the story of two charismatically appealing people, both providing the performance of their careers, Charlie (Adam Driver), an up and coming avant-garde theater director in New York who throws everything he makes back into his theater, while his wife, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), is the leading lady who stars in all his productions, where their lives revolve around each new play, consumed by the inherent possibilities of new expressions.  Together they have an adored 8-year old son Henry (Azhy Robertson), where the beauty of their marriage is that they’re all intrinsically attuned to one another, where one is an extension of the other, even down to the tiniest details, both openly generous, where there’s an unspoken language for married couples, who somehow know what the other is thinking or what they need and instantly provides it without so much of a thought, as it all happens so easily, becoming second nature to them.  The film opens with two meticulously detailed and amazingly coherent letters revealing everything they like about the other person, which defines them in adoringly lovable ways, exploring everything that’s uniquely different about them, while exposing their innate humanity, as this is the core foundation of their love.  It’s such a beautiful way to start a film, immediately pulling the audience into their inner wavelengths, finding something appealing about them both.  Without question they work well together, yet suddenly they’re in the offices of a marriage counselor, expected to read their prepared letters, but a fuming Nicole refuses, storming out in protest, finding it a complete waste of time.  Both decide they don’t want lawyers, thinking they can figure it out themselves.  As if in response, she decides to take a role in a television pilot that may or may not get picked up, moving to West Hollywood with Henry, living with her unhinged showbiz mother (Julie Hagerty) and socially awkward sister (Merritt Wever), exploring what her career might be like without Charlie.  While it’s viewed as a temporary, knee-jerk response, it literally opens the door to a brand new world for Nicole, something she always turned down before in favor of working with her husband, feeling she may have sacrificed her own career for his, but is now open to new opportunities.  Both she and Henry blossom in their new environment, while Charlie remains engrossed in his theater company, as his play is moving to Broadway, completely unaware of her emotional transformation, which is unleashed in a monologue of expurgated fury, where the intensity of her built-up anger surprises even her, unleashed in the offices of a hyper-focused divorce attorney, Nora (Laura Dern), friendly to a fault, but specializing in going for the jugular, offering her own blistering speech on the religiously entrenched societal devaluation of motherhood.  When Charlie comes to visit announcing that he’s won a “genius” MacArthur Fellowship grant, a prestigious award that comes with a sizable monetary stipend that can help fund his theater project, he’s completely blindsided by being served divorce papers (which was family rehearsed), while also urged to find a hotel, as he can’t stay with Nicole.  Welcome to life in LA.        

What follows is a descent into the monstrous hell of divorce attorneys, like a Kafkaesque house of pain that makes no sense, as Charlie typically avoids all lawyerly repercussions while attempting to stage his play, forced at the last minute to respond in court or lose custody rights, so he searches desperately for a lawyer, torn between tough guy Ray Liotta who basically extorts all future earnings (including his grant), charging the astronomical amount of $950/hour, and nice guy Alan Alda, a grandfatherly type who empathizes with his pain, offers hugs, charges considerably less, but is easily manipulated in the hearings, allowing Nora to ride roughshod over them.  Going through a series of humiliations and disappointments, having to fly back and forth between coasts, Charlie is up against it, as his world is simply collapsing all around him, living an agonizing life of deep turmoil, where every gesture is met with a resounding slam of the door.  Even Henry turns against him, as he’s enrolled in school, has a bunch of new friends, where he’s enjoying himself more in the sunshine, surrounded by new opportunities, while Dad is in desperate straits, trying to hold on, but losing every step of the way, advised to establish residence in Los Angeles if he wants a chance of joint custody, but his life there is a dreary emptiness, a sham of an existence, kept away from his work which is collapsing without him, yet it’s his only chance to hold onto his son.  Meanwhile, Nicole’s life is flourishing, coming out from under her husband’s shadow, where her talent is recognized, realizing her own hopes and dreams, as her pilot is picked up, and she’s even been offered the chance to direct, where she’s part of the Hollywood crowd now, hanging out at posh parties with all the beautiful people.  However the day of reckoning arises, their ultimate day in court, with Charlie backed into a corner, forced to go with Mr. Big Bucks, Ray Liotta as his lawyer, where the back and forth resembles a street fight, each undermining the other with savage attacks of character, where it’s pure histrionics, like a theater performance of who can inflict the most damage, both ultimately leveled by heinously exaggerated accusations.  It’s a pathetic display that leaves both feeling humbled and utterly ashamed afterwards, attempting some reconciliation in Charlie’s empty apartment, but it deteriorates into a blitzkrieg of frayed emotions, where all the innermost fears and perpetual anxieties come streaming out in a slugfest for the ages, leaving both devastated and emotionally exhausted afterwards, emptying themselves of all nagging resentments, perhaps free to finally let go.  Subjected to a near surreal visit by a court appointed observer that ends in an unmitigated disaster, Baumbach magnificently pivots into two Stephen Sondheim songs from Company wonderfully getting the elevated exposure they deserve, capturing the richness and emotion of the lyrics while transforming them into new contexts, ambitiously interweaving them into the refreshingly new state of mind of each character, cleverly altering the meaning in marvelously inventive sequences.  Nicole showcases her natural charisma singing You Could Drive a Person Crazy with her mother and sister in an upbeat Andrews Sisters-style rendition at a large party gathering with friends, now gloriously happy, in harmony with her surroundings and the picture of success, while Charlie, back in New York in a piano bar surrounded by his theater troupe breaks out into Being Alive, almost in jest at first, but then diving in full throttle, with the words just gushing out, literally pouring out his heart and soul, becoming a spontaneous stream-of-conscience revelation, shot in one take, revealing an exposed, vulnerable side, finally opening up again, reconnecting to his world, yet it’s done with such an instinctual theatrical flair, feeling so effortless and natural.  Watching them process what they value the most, authentic performances, reveals a resuscitation of what’s so essential to them both as artists, bookending that marvelously inventive reading of the letters at the opening, coming full turn, both finally allowed to breathe again.       

While We're Young

WHILE WE’RE YOUNG                 B                    

USA  (97 mi)  2014 d:  Noah Baumbach                   Official site

He’s not evil, he’s just young.

─Josh Shrebnik (Ben Stiller)

The kids are getting older - - that feeling of the inevitability of aging seems to be on the mind of writer/director Noah Baumbach, once seen as one of the cooler heads in the business, whose ruthlessly satirical semi-autobiographical The Squid and the Whale (2005) remains his definitive film, one of the quintessential indie films of the modern era that seems to define our place in the struggle, where his films are snapshots of distinctively uncomfortable and often sad moments in our lives, drawn from his own personal experiences growing up in Brooklyn, where his characters are often going through life-changing moments.  Prone to disappointments, Baumbach’s films feature restless, anxiety-driven characters along the lines of Woody Allen, both known for their acidic wit, but are usually made for a fraction of the cost.  Baumbach’s films have a fun factor associated with them, also exquisite performances, where the audience is literally sharing intimate moments with the people onscreen, much like a theatrical experience, where you hang out for a brief period with a few fictional characters of his own creation, where his films, even his failures, are always time well spent, featuring ingeniously written dialogue of characters in flux, small gems of personal life experiences that reveal our tenuous connection to the constantly changing world around us.   Whatever Baumbach may be, he’s never boring, where the optimum word is usually clever.   Anyone remember the animated opening prologue sequence to Orson Welles’ THE TRIAL (1962), often described as the doorkeeper myth, The Trial: Before The Law - YouTube (2:45), an existential dilemma suggesting that from the outset we cannot escape the inevitability of our fate? 

“Before the Law stands a doorkeeper,” the story begins. “A man from the country comes to this doorkeeper and requests admittance to the Law.  But the doorkeeper says that he can’t grant him admittance now.  The man thinks it over and then asks if he’ll be able to enter later.  ‘It’s possible,’ says the doorkeeper, ‘but not now.’”

The doorkeeper warns the country man that three even more powerful (if unglimpsed) guards lie beyond him—the impenetrable layers of the bureaucracy.  The man waits forever, until his death, until the gatekeeper closes the door meant only for him, but which he can never enter.

   

In Baumbach’s film, it opens with a few lines from Henrik Ibsen’s play The Master Builder, where Solness, an aging character, wonders aloud if he should “open the door” to the younger generation, anxious that they might “break in upon me” and seek “retribution.”  By the end of the film, we hear playing over the final credits Paul McCartney’s song “Let ‘Em In,” Let 'Em In Paul McCartney And Wings Lyrics Photodex ... (5:09):

Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Do me a favor, open the door and let ‘em in

An amusing stroll through a generational divide, the story concerns a couple in their forties Josh and Cornelia, Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, seemingly at a crossroads in their life, still unsure of themselves as they’ve become creatures of routine, completely dependent upon instant access from the latest electronic gadgetry, though in denial about their approaching middle-age, where earlier dreams of success have eluded them, finding themselves at odds with most of their friends who are fast becoming parents, where the focus of their attention shifts to their children, leaving Josh and Cornelia on the outside looking in.  As a result, when the opportunity comes to hang out with a younger couple in their 20’s, Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver, a revelation, and the underutilized Amanda Seyfried), both are infused with a newfound energy from the younger generation’s more carefree lifestyle, finding it invigorating, much less pressure, and somewhat liberating to be youthful again.   Mirroring the director himself (who is age 45), Josh plays a 44-year old documentary filmmaker who has a strained relationship with success, having had some degree of earlier critical acclaim for his first film, but feels the daunting pressure of living under the shadow of Cornelia’s more acclaimed father (for whom she works), Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin), a Maysles or Wiseman style documentarian considered a legend in the field.  Still struggling for the past ten years with the shape and editing of a film he can’t seem to finish about the political, historical and militaristic connections of the last 50 years, (“It’s really about America!”), including a lengthy interview of aging, leftist intellectual Ira Mandelstam (Peter Yarrow, from Peter, Paul, and Mary), mimicking Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), which also includes an interview with an aging intellectual, yet here the audience immediately senses Mandelstam is the most boring creature on earth, yet Josh refuses to cut any of his precious footage, leaving his film in an unwieldy state of seven hours long.  Making matter worse, his grant funding has run dry, leaving them precariously on the edge of financial difficulty, where he might be forced to swallow his pride and borrow money from his father-in-law, something that eats away at him, as if diminishing his own self-esteem or masculinity.  When he discovers Jamie is a budding filmmaker already familiar with his work, he’s not only flattered, but thinks perhaps he might be of some help offering an objective perspective, discussing many of the ideas on his film, but instead Josh gets sucked into Jamie’s first film project about reconnecting with a long lost friend on Facebook who turns out to be a suicidal war veteran.  While Josh sees himself more as a seasoned professional offering tutorial guidance and expertise, internally he wonders when he stopped being young and ambitious and instead began thinking of himself as something of a disappointment, where he’s been bogged down working on the same film for so long that he’s worried it may never get finished.  Little wonder, then, that he leaves his stagnant life behind and runs off with Jamie as his newly discovered best friend.  

Zany and hilariously “in-the-moment,” hanging out with the refreshingly different younger couple brings unforeseen energy into their lives.  Living in a warehouse loft apartment in Harlem that is surprisingly quant and authentic, the walls filled with vinyl records and furniture they built themselves, Cornelia notices with some surprise, “It’s like their apartment is full of stuff we threw out.”  Filled with the collected clutter of whatever appealed to them at the moment, Jamie seems interested in everything, always eager to try new things, where his idea of living is experiencing things as unfiltered as possible, playing board games instead of watching TV, where Darby makes organic ice cream in an assortment of specialty flavors.  Wearing T-shirts that say “Some crappy band,” or “Some college I didn’t go to,” Darby’s darker impulses include exploring empty subway tunnels or taking hip-hop dance classes with Cornelia, who can’t figure out the dance moves, asking quizzically “What kind of class is this?” while Josh and Jamie ride bikes through the city streets (which Josh cuts short due to arthritic knees) or go shopping for fedora hats, where Josh confesses, “Before we met the only two feelings I had left were ‘wistful’ and ‘disdainful.’”  When trying to recollect a pop reference, Josh instinctively pulls out his smartphone, but Jamie and Darby prefer the mystery of trying to remember without an electronic gadget that can find easy, readily available answers for you.  And if they can’t remember, then they simply move on to something else.  It’s reminiscent of an era of bringing electronic calculators into the classroom, where students were allowed to do all the calculating electronically, even on tests, where previous generations were forced to memorize all the formulas and do all their own calculations.  Curiously, inverting one’s expectations, it’s the “younger” couple that prefers the “older” challenge.  In a dinner scene with friends their same age, Josh and Cornelia, along with others, are all seen on their smartphones, where someone utters the rationalization, “It used to be rude, but now it’s accepted.”  Similarly, when Josh hears a song he hated when it was released in the 80’s but suddenly finds inspiring when heard again, Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long,” Lionel Richie - All Night Long (All Night) - YouTube (3:48), or the dreadfully overplayed ROCKY III (1982) theme song “Eye of the Tiger,” Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger - YouTube (4:10), he instantly recalls, “I remember when this song was just bad,” now suddenly being rediscovered by those hearing it for the first time.  This trip down memory lane, however, gets derailed when they decide to attend a spiritual cleansing that involves a fake shaman and hallucinogenic drugs, where the outcome grows more grotesque than absurd, where they’re obviously closing a moral line of questionable bad taste, where it also serves as a reminder of just what, exactly, have they gotten themselves into?  While always maintaining he was a purist, willing to spend ten years refusing to allow any phony commercialism to taint his movies, Josh always believed filmmaking was “capturing the truth of the experience.”  When he realizes Jamie’s work is an utter fraud and fabrication that conveniently accepts deceitful motives, staging events for real life and passing it off as truthful, for instance, Josh finds this an irreconcilable difference, a perversion of the truth.  While the film loses some of its sanity, with Ben Stiller having a meltdown and reverting to form as one of the more contemptible characters onscreen today, for further evidence, see Greenberg (2010), but Baumbach wrote the film especially for him while attempting to expose how what passes for the truth today is altogether different than previous generations, having been raised in an era of instant gratification where images are captured by cellphones and posted on Twitter or YouTube, where there is no longer an editing process, per se, but an immediate flood of public opinion that determines what’s essentially the truth.  This is a film that you want to like more, but it grows curiously weaker by the end, lost in its own ambiguity, where even the title feels somewhat lame, but overall it has more inventive charm and pizazz, even if it’s not altogether a success, than most other directors working today.