“All great comedies end in a wedding.” That was my best friend’s advice when I couldn’t figure out how one of my screenplays should end.
He’s right. A wedding is a good way to end a comedy. Everything turns out just right, doesn’t it?
Then there’s Marriage Story (2019), director Noah Baumbach’s latest film. It starts with a divorce and ends with everyone happily moving on with their lives. It’s characteristic of a Baumbach film to meet complicated characters at the moments their lives are just beginning to fall apart. Things then go ahead and fall apart, but in interesting and complicated ways. And then pretty much work out in the end (sort of).
Baumbach’s directorial style and subject matter have been compared to Woody Allen’s. There is a superficial truth to that. Both make movies primarily about New Yorkers, and they all are a bit on the neurotic side.
Where Baumbach is preferable—for me, at least—is that his movies are about families. Granted, these are families in crisis, but they at least feel like people you might know, not because of how they live, but because of how they talk. When things are going badly, we all aspire to rise above the moment and be a better version of ourselves. Alas, that usually doesn’t happen. We end up saying things we regret and doing things we later find embarrassing. We end up being disappointed in ourselves and how we handled those moments. That’s the part that Baumbach nails perfectly.
Consider the big argument scene at the center of Marriage Story between Scarlett Johannsen and Adam Driver. They are trying to work out an agreement to settle their divorce and the discussion devolves into an ugly, protracted, bitter argument that ends in a deeply unsettling feeling. Anyone who has ever gone through a divorce or a particularly bad patch in their marriage knows this scene. It is intensely true and powerfully resonant because all of us have lived that scene at some point in our lives. Baumbach’s real genius as a filmmaker is to not only put that scene on film, but also to take us past that moment and lead the characters to a better place in their lives. Yes, that happened. And that is behind us now. How do we live the rest of our lives? Their lives may be different than mine, but Baumbach makes the pain, laughter, and struggle they go through real and relatable. And that, my friends, takes some considerable skill. Here are some of my favorites.
Prior to Marriage Story, this film has generally been considered Baumbach’s best film. It’s semi-autobiographical and is about the collapse of a marriage between two intellectuals in Brooklyn. In this case, the couple seems to be a version of Baumbach’s parents and the film chronicles the bitter and contentious divorce they went through when Baumbach was a teenager. Jeff Daniels and the inimitable Laura Linney play the couple, while Jesse Eisenberg is the older son who bears the brunt of the bitter break-up. This is a marvelously real movie and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Baumbach has collaborated with writer/director/actor Greta Gerwig on several films, both as a writer and actor. This is one of those films. Gerwig, who went on to write and direct Lady Bird (2017), co-wrote this screenplay with Baumbach and played the lead. This film delves into another of Baumbach’s favorite themes—transitioning into adulthood. Frances is a 27-year-old dancer struggling in just about every aspect of her life. Her roommate announces she is moving to a neighborhood Frances can’t afford and things spiral from there, until she finally figures it out and moves on with a new and slightly different version of her life. This movie is funny and, more importantly, feels very real. Gerwig is fabulous in the lead.
I’m pretty sure that no woman planning a wedding has ever said to herself: what this wedding really needs is my self-absorbed, trouble-making sister to show up and screw everything up. And we’re off to the races. Margot is a self-absorbed writer/single mom who decides to bring her 11-year-old son to her estranged sister’s wedding. Nicole Kidman is perfect as Margot and Jennifer Jason Leigh is her sister, the bride Pauline, who gets fed up with Margot’s objections to her soon-to-be husband (which, it turns out, are well-placed). A number of heated sisterly arguments ensue, and, as I mentioned earlier about Baumbach movies, everything turns out to be okay in the end (sort of).
Another script co-written by Baumbach and Gerwig. This amusing comedy about a self-serious college freshman in New York (Lola Kirke) and her tightly-wound and highly amusing soon-to-be step-sister Brooke (Gerwig), who is more than a decade older but who never quite grew up. Gerwig is tremendously funny and this is a relentlessly quotable movie. This movie came and went rather quickly, but it really deserves a rental. In fact, it’s my pick to be a future cult classic. See it now before your friends, so you can brag that you’ve already seen it three times.
Baumbach’s directorial debut about post-college angst. No, this is not the terrible Will Ferrell movie of the same name about little kid soccer (Kicking and Screaming [2005]). This is an amusing/melodramatic take on the transition from college to adulthood. It was Baumbach’s first feature and touches on many of his regular themes. What, you might ask, is the action of the movie? Well, since it’s about people who seem stuck in the cocoon of college life even after they graduated, the action is pretty limited. None of the people here seem to do much. Sure, this wears a bit, but the characters are so funny and charming, you’re willing to stick with them to see if they ever figure it out. Like many characters in a Baumbach movie, where they think they are going is never where they end up. And that turns out to be pretty okay.
David Raether is a veteran TV writer and essayist. He worked for 12 years as a television sitcom writer/producer, including a 111-episode run on the ground-breaking ABC comedy “Roseanne.” His essays have been published by Salon.com, The Times of London, and Longforms.org, and have been lauded by The Atlantic Magazine and the BBC World Service. His memoir, Homeless: A Picaresque Memoir from Our Times, is awaiting publication.