•
Rating:
One story, a million stories. You can find Baumbach's new film in all the year-end lists, many have seen it and just as many have talked about it. It tells the end of a marriage; it's something you watch if you want to hurt yourself a little. But actually, not quite.
It's certainly the highlight of a career for a director and screenwriter that some have already loved for a long time. He wrote Fantastic Mr. Fox together with Wes Anderson, and directed a masterpiece like Frances Ha, which probably remains his best.
It may seem, but I don't want to tell you that the film is overrated or lucky. It's very beautiful, there's no argument. With actors of this caliber, in this shape, someone like Baumbach can only gather the gravy that drips. Besides the two protagonists, who offer themselves up bare, almost as if they were playing themselves, I greatly appreciated a fantastic Laura Dern as the witch lawyer and a well-seasoned Ray Liotta as the equally fierce male counterpart. I watched it in its original language, and it all truly sounds like a triumph.
When the camera lines up the profiles, in court, taking advantage of the depth of field, there is indeed Mr. Cinema giving thanks. But also in bed, when mom Nicole, little Henry, and dad Charlie are so close together... for one last time. There are many details that stick in the eyes: the distance between one couch and another, marking an unbridgeable rift between the two, already preemptive; the shots to separate or unite, using Allen-like rooms and doors, which intermittently subtract the characters. The long close-up of Scarlett when she answers the questionnaire. The gate that separates them. A lot of things already seen and almost telegraphed for those who know Baumbach, but which the filmmaker undeniably exploits well.
However, I want to tell you something else. That probably such emphatic appreciation in this case has a precise reason, and it has to do with the way we watch films. Marriage Story is a very beautiful and well-curated, detailed representation of what each of us already knows or can easily imagine, knows from hearsay, from close experiences, from widespread narratives.
So, a splendid film - in form and acting - about an almost paradigmatic story, which doesn't so much identify a particular case (even though it fills it with details, many of which are disposable) but rather certain overall dynamics of the divorce phenomenon, well-established and widespread.
It's not by chance that one of the main topics concerns the war that lawyers (actually friends with each other) unleash for mere professional rivalry, to drag it out and get the fattest fee possible. But before slaughtering each other - on the skin of their clients - they agree to meet at a certain charity event. Their hypocrisy is discovered, exhibited.
But there are many "well-known" topics that Baumbach presents here, it's all a "already seen" in our imagination. And it's precisely for this reason that the film conquers the viewer: the viewing rests on many concepts already possessed by the viewer, it titillates and somehow reinforces our already well-formed ideas on "how a divorce ends." Therefore, it starts from a favorable position, and as it proceeds, it's as if it tells us, "See, the lawyers are vultures," or "they don't want to hurt each other," "look how they still love each other." It's basically accommodating generalized and easy predictions. A director's and actors' high-quality cover to say what, deep down, everyone knows, everyone hopes.
More than pain, it stirs a feeling of pity, a sense of the havoc of feelings on the altar of money. More than delving into emotions, Baumbach delves into lawyers' fees, observing the dignity of a finished feeling crumbling in spite of itself in a society that weighs in dollars every half sentence between spouses, every half promise between lovers.
The end of love is almost the lesser evil. And indeed, it's almost not discussed.
Some visual metaphors, some hyperbolic dialogues, some physical dynamics between the characters have a bit of a divorce rhetoric feel. But the miracle (a bit of a sly one) of the movie is precisely this ability to perfectly balance on the edge between rhetoric and freshness, between predictability and quality of staging.
It makes even those who aren't truly cinema lovers feel deeply in love with it, sparing them any real cognitive effort. But that's exactly how you break through, Mr. Baumbach!
Loading comments slowly
