Marriage Story Deep Dive

What was interesting about Marriage Story was the relationship between Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, two of my favorite actors.  The attraction was clear, but so was the inevitable conflict. You didn’t see one as right, the other wrong; or one good, the other bad. You saw two individuals – fortunately, talented – who each needed, or expected, something from the relationship that the other wouldn’t, or couldn’t provide. It made sense that at the end, post-divorce, they could remain friends.

What didn’t make sense was most everything else. I know there must be lawyers who take over their clients’ cases and drive them in directions they don’t want to go, and there are clients who don’t know better; but the Ray Liotta and Laura Dern lawyers were so extreme I couldn’t enjoy watching the movie.  Why didn’t either Charlie or Nicole say, Hey, this isn’t what I want, and why am I paying you so much? When Nora Fanshaw tells Nicole, “I got you a 55-44 split on child custody,” over Nicole’s desire for a 50-50 split, I smelled an ethics violation as well as a director’s need to overemphasize a point to caricature. Of course, all the other characters were pretty cardboard, and what was Wallace Shawn doing in this realistic film playing, as usual, Wallace Shawn?

One other nagging issue: while I understood Charlie’s need for control, as a theater director, I couldn’t accept his irrational need to keep his son in New York, let alone the alternate life he had to set up in LA. How did he think he could take care of a young boy with a demanding job and no relatives for backup and uncertain financial prospects; whereas Nicole, in addition to being the mother, had a mother and sister ready to help and seemingly a better job? Wasn’t this reason enough to work out a mutually acceptable settlement instead of a fight?