Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story is one of Netflix’s biggest contenders this award season. The tedious divorce story about two selfish/narcissistic artists who place their self-interest over their relationship and even their son is nothing but a pain to sit through. The film doesn’t put anything new on the table, it takes some psychological turns attempting to portray the journey of a failed relationship, but that attempt is not compelling enough to make the story-telling seamless. None of the characters make any intellectual or emotional progress from their journey, and lessons are not learned. No matter how much the script tells us of the love shared between Nicole and Charlie, it just doesn’t translate this way on screen. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson have absolutely no chemistry together, and it’s not for the lack of trying from the latter. Driver deliverers his best performance to date; too bad it’s in this film; where his quite emotional moments shine more than his loud ones. The loud moments would have been better if Scarlett Johansson’s performance was less wooden and more convincing. Laura Dern was one of the few high points of the film, she makes a very credible divorce attorney doubled as a friend. And the final high point goes to Robbie Ryan, his very simple but nevertheless beautiful cinematography elevated the film a bit. Overall, Marriage Story is a basic cheese pizza that had been tried over and over again, with no new toppings to make the taste remember-able or even slightly intriguing.
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