Movie Review Marriage Story

Marriage Story (2019) 

Directed by Noah Baumbach

Written by Noah Baumbach

Starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta

Release Date December 6th, 2019 

Published December 2nd, 2019 

Only Noah Baumbach could make his least cynical movie about divorce. Cynicism about other people, about relationships, romantic or parental, is at the core of Baumbach’s work. Baumbach has always had a sharp ear for dialogue that cuts to the heart of intimate conflict and in movies such as Greenberg or Margot at the Wedding, he’s used that sharpness to darkly humorous effect. His films are often very insightful even as they are especially bitter. 

Thus we arrive at Marriage Story, Baumbach’s most mature and thoughtful movie that finds places of deep, ugly, honesty and yet manages to end on a note that doesn’t leave you feeling that he loathes the rest of humanity. Marriage Story may be about the desperately sad end of what appeared to be a happy and fulfilling marriage but somehow, Baumbach turns that ugliness into something beautiful and bordering on hopeful. 

Marriage Story stars Adam Driver as Charlie and Scarlett Johannson as Nicole. Together, they are the parents of Henry (Azhy Robertson) and are part of a successful theater company where Charlie is a rising star director and Nicole is the star. They’re friends believed they were a perfect couple but now, they are getting a divorce. Nicole is moving to Los Angeles for a television job and Henry is going with her. 

The plan is for Charlie and Nicole to work out their divorce together with no lawyers. That lasts about a day or so until Nicole accepts some advice to visit with Nora (Laura Dern). Nora helps Nicole see the challenges ahead of her in trying to establish herself in Los Angeles while Charlie pressures her to move back to New York City. Nicole wants Charlie to recognize that she wants things as much as he wants particular things. Eventually, Nicole agrees that hiring Nora is her only choice. 

Blindsided, Charlie is forced to get his own lawyer, first turning to a high powered, expensive brawler, Jay Marrotta (Ray Liotta) before settling on the less expensive and more fatherly, Burt (Alan Alda). Burt urges Charlie to settle and even consider moving to Los Angeles as his case for living in New York appears weak compared to Nicole’s case for living in Los Angeles. Both Charlie and Nicole have strong reasons for wanting what they want and the movie is fair to both sides.

There isn’t much more of a plot to describe in Marriage Story. The movie isn’t about plot, it’s about characters and in Charlie and Nicole, we have some of the most indelible characters that Noah Baumbach has created in a career filled with great characters. In Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson, Baumbach has a pair of actors who are magnetic personalities. No matter what kind of nasty or thoughtless words Baumbach puts in their mouths, Driver and Johannson remain people we care for deeply. 

Since Marriage Story isn’t a movie that is about plot, we are forced to rely on moments and Driver and Johannson are incredible at creating moments with these characters. The standout moment is an argument that is verbally violent. It’s a scene of remarkable energy and intensity deepened by how real it feels. The going for the jugular in this scene is not showy, not over the top, it has an organic, earnest, and angry quality that is raw and real. 

In a movie filled with great moments, another that stands out is a musical performance. Marriage Story is not a musical and the two musical scenes are not fourth wall breaking moments of experimental cinema. Rather, both scenes are organic to the performative nature of these two wonderful characters. The one that stayed with me was the performance of a Gershwin song by Adam Driver. He may not be a natural singer but his manner carries the song, an almost accidental confession of his vulnerability. Driver’s acting sells the performance in ways a trained singer might not be able to achieve.  

Marriage Story is Noah Baumbach’s first visual masterpiece. The direction is flawless with the sets and the compositions adding depth and beauty to the complex emotions of this story. Some visuals are a little on the nose such as a scene where Charlie and Nicole are on opposite sides of a gate they are helping each other to close but for the most part, the look of Marriage Story with its bright, spare spaces filled with visual dividers is a lovely reflection of the divisions growing between Charlie and Nicole. 

The ways in which Baumbach and his crew visually divide Charlie and Nicole is subtle yet striking when you do notice it. My favorite moment is in Nora’s expensive law office. A pair of overhead lights act as a visual dividing line with Nicole on one side and Charlie on the other as the camera slowly recedes from the scene. It’s a gorgeous use of setting to underline the story being told. 

The script for Marriage Story is the best of Baumbach’s career, a lacerating yet lovely script that establishes why Charlie and Nicole can’t remain married while making neither one the villain. That’s quite a trick to pull off. Movies like this tend to rely on one side being the villain but not Marriage Story. Both Charlie and Nicole have done things that they regret and Charlie has been openly neglectful of Nicole’s desires but for the most part, both sides are treated fairly. 

There are no illusions about Nicole and Charlie’s future, no hints that a simple resolution is coming that will make everything okay and yet, the movie has a hopeful quality. The message appears to be that there is life after divorce and recriminations are like small cuts that eventually heal. Forgiveness is part of loving someone, even if it isn't the kind of love that keeps a marriage together. 

I mentioned at the start that Marriage Story is Noah Baumbach’s least cynical movie and it is. You will need to see the movie to find out why. That’s not to say that there is a spoiler per se, I don’t think I could spoil this movie, but there are emotional elements that you need to access for yourself to understand what I mean when I say the movie is less cynical than movies like The Squid and the Whale or Mistress America or his previous Netflix effort, The Meyerowitz Stories. 

Movie Review Resurrecting the Champ

Resurrecting the Champ (2007) 

Directed by Rod Lurie

Written by Allison Burnett 

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols

Release Date August 24th, 2007

Published August 23rd, 2007 

Josh Hartnett is a young actor who I have really come to enjoy. His work is always complex and never predictable. His performances in Lucky Number Slevin, The Black Dahlia and Mozart & The Whale are three of the best performances by any actor in the last two years. Each has a different tone, a different approach and requires different skills and yet Hartnett nails each one.

For his latest film Resurrecting The Champ, Hartnett outclasses the material which takes a compelling true story and fouls it up with false subplots and an ending far too neat and tidy to be believed.

Resurrecting The Champ is loosely based on a story by L.A Times writer J.R Moehringer. The story of an old homeless man who claimed he was once a heavyweight boxing contender. His stories about Rocky Marciano and Jake LaMotta and Floyd Patterson held Moehringer in sway  for weeks but in researching this compelling fellow, Moehringer discovered a secret that changed the story from one of redemption to one of grand delusions and good intentions.

The movie Resurrecting The Champ casts Josh Hartnett in the role of Erik Kernan, a struggling boxing beat writer for a fake Denver newspaper, The Denver Times. His boss (Alan Alda) feels his writing lacks personality and buries most of his stories. Kernan's wife, Joyce, also a journalist, has kicked him out of the house for reasons that are only moderately clear.

Kernan lives in the shadow of his father, a legendary boxing announcer who abandoned him and his mother when Erik was only 6 years old. He is at the bottom of his self loathing, daddy blaming rope when he stumbles across the champ (Samuel L. Jackson). Claiming to be Bombing Bob Satterfield a one time contender for boxing's world heavyweight championship, the champ as those on the street call him, is now living next to a dumpster behind the Denver sports arena.

Sensing a heart rending sports story that could save his career, Erik implores the champ to tell him his life story and how he went from nearly fighting for the title to being homeless in Denver. His stories about breaking Rocky Marciano's nose and falling to Pretty Boy Floyd are compelling and Erik is at rapt attention. However, the champ has a secret that threatens to take both of them back down to the gutters.

Resurrecting The Champ is a project 10 years in the making. Producer Mike Medavoy bought the rights to J.R Moehringer's LA Times Magazine story not long after it was published in 1997. The film passed between a number of talents, including Morgan Freeman who was once set to play the champ. Finally, producer Bob Yari and director Rob Lurie managed to land Sam Jackson and Josh Hartnett for the leads and Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures finally gave the go ahead.

Jackson and Hartnett are terrific casting. Though Jackson has struggled recently, allowing his bad ass reputation to become something of a caricature, he redeems himself with an immersive performance as the champ. Josh Hartnett continues a series of tremendous performances with complex turns as a feckless self aggrandizer who is forced to confront the emptiness of his own life opposite the life of the champ who despite his circumstances, seems to want for nothing.

The script by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett mirrors in many ways Stephen Ray's Shattered Glass. Both films are about journalists who find themselves overwhelmed by their own ambition. Shattered Glass is more accomplished, but Resurrecting The Champ benefits from a cast that elevates similar material. Both films are insightful about the pressures of the world of journalism through Glass again has the advantage with a cleaner, linear narrative.

Resurrecting The Champ tries a little too hard to cover a number of complex issues. As if the central story of this homeless fighter and the opportunistic journalist weren't enough, the film ladles on a backstory for each character about fathers and sons and the lengths one goes to be a good father or to avoid becoming a bad father. It's not that this fathers and sons subplot is poorly played, rather just that it distracts from the more interesting world of journalism and this dynamic relationship between the champ and the journalist.

Regardless of some aching narrative problems, including an ending that is far too easily tied up in a pretty bow, Resurrecting The Champ is a compelling character study. Watching Samuel L. Jackson return to form by becoming 'the champ', you are reminded of what a great talent Jackson is when given a good character to play.

His work in Resurrecting The Champ alongside Josh Hartnett is so good that you can't help but get caught up rooting for both characters even as they fail and reveal their flaws. The champ is something of an innocent, having spent much of his later years punch drunk from years in the ring, he is easy to sympathize with to a point.

Josh Hartnett has the more difficult character. His Erik Kernan is feckless, self loathing and a little lazy. When confronted about his writing early in the film we are told he really isn't very good. His own wife evinces only disappointment when she looks at him. Worst of all, Erik feels compelled to lie about his life to his six year old son leading to a scene with former Broncos quarterback John Elway that is painful and embarrassing in very real ways.

Hartnett's job is to somehow bring us to care about this guy and root for his redemption and he succeeds with an earnest come to Jesus series of epiphanies about his life that had me riveted. His character is, unfortunately, undermined late in the film by an ending that rushes past some of his more emotional moments, on its way to a too tidy ending, but Hartnett throughout remains a compelling presence.

Resurrecting The Champ is something of a disappointment in the end. The film aches to be deeper than it is and more complex than it needs to be. The story wraps up too quickly and too neatly. Still, Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett make a great team and they elevate the material to the point that their work together is worth the price of admission even if the movie itself does not hold up to much inspection.