Marriage Story
Academy Award × 1
A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.
What critics thought
Noah Baumbach's divorce drama landed as one of the most widely celebrated American films of 2019, with Driver and Johansson's performances earning near-universal admiration. The handful of dissenters didn't dispute the craft so much as the milieu — calling out the film's unexamined upper-class New York bubble as a limitation on how universally it actually speaks.
“At once funny, scalding, and stirring, built around two bravura performances of incredible sharpness and humanity, it's the work of a major film artist, one who shows that he can capture life in all its emotional detail and complexity — and, in the process, make a piercing statement about how our society now works.”
Owen Gleiberman·Variety
“Other American films about divorce have portrayed this phenomenon — the legal process driving and shaping the couple's feelings rather than vice versa — but none with the force and clarity of this one [...] It's also funny and, when you least expect it (and most need it), almost unbearably tender, thanks in large part to the sensational leads, who deliver the deepest, most alive and attuned performances of their careers.”
Jon Frosch·The Hollywood Reporter
“The world of third-wave coffee, delicatessens and Upper West Side therapy has been done to death and does not speak to as much of the human condition as the people wading through it themselves seem to think.”
David Levesley·GQ
“This story is really about class rivalry clouded by a sex-and-cinema surface. The obnoxious sentimentality of Marriage Story forces a filmmaker's self-righteousness on us [...] It is Johansson and Driver who suffer Baumbach's superficiality. This is his least-bad film only because the quality of the performances [of the supporting cast] is improved.”
Armond White·The National Review
Genres
Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorNoah Baumbach
StarringAdam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta
ComposerRandy Newman
Marriage Story
Academy Award × 1
A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.
What critics thought
Noah Baumbach's divorce drama landed as one of the most widely celebrated American films of 2019, with Driver and Johansson's performances earning near-universal admiration. The handful of dissenters didn't dispute the craft so much as the milieu — calling out the film's unexamined upper-class New York bubble as a limitation on how universally it actually speaks.
“At once funny, scalding, and stirring, built around two bravura performances of incredible sharpness and humanity, it's the work of a major film artist, one who shows that he can capture life in all its emotional detail and complexity — and, in the process, make a piercing statement about how our society now works.”
Owen Gleiberman·Variety
“Other American films about divorce have portrayed this phenomenon — the legal process driving and shaping the couple's feelings rather than vice versa — but none with the force and clarity of this one [...] It's also funny and, when you least expect it (and most need it), almost unbearably tender, thanks in large part to the sensational leads, who deliver the deepest, most alive and attuned performances of their careers.”
Jon Frosch·The Hollywood Reporter
“The world of third-wave coffee, delicatessens and Upper West Side therapy has been done to death and does not speak to as much of the human condition as the people wading through it themselves seem to think.”
David Levesley·GQ
“This story is really about class rivalry clouded by a sex-and-cinema surface. The obnoxious sentimentality of Marriage Story forces a filmmaker's self-righteousness on us [...] It is Johansson and Driver who suffer Baumbach's superficiality. This is his least-bad film only because the quality of the performances [of the supporting cast] is improved.”
Armond White·The National Review
Genres
Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorNoah Baumbach
StarringAdam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta
ComposerRandy Newman