Relationships are hard…

Charlie (Adam Driver) is married to Nicole (Scarlet Johansson) but it’s all falling apart.  While Charlie is a theatre director with no intention of leaving New York, Nicole just got cast in a big TV show and is relocating to LA.  What should have been a simple and amicable separation devolves into an ugly mess that puts a strain on their relationship and the very fabric of their family unit.

The hyperbole is earned here because Marriage Story is one of the most devastatingly elegant things that have simply ever been put on screen and it improves upon other entries in the family drama canon because this makes it almost exclusively between the spouses and keeps the rest of the family on the edges.

With intensely intimate camera work; writer/director Noah Baumbach puts us in the middle of the one thing we all hate the most; change.  He’s crafted something that is funny, emotionally savage, heartfelt and honest in capturing what it means when a marriage is ending and the dynamic of the family unit is being forced to change when at least one of them probably doesn’t want it to.  It’s beautiful yet brutal honesty as we see how people who love each other can really treat each other.

With performances from Driver and Johansson that simply dominate the frame, Marriage Story is the kind of movie that you honestly can’t look away from, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel.  It’s simply the truth.