Marriage Story 2019
Somehow this movie has gotten amazing acclaim as a movie, when I don’t even remember it playing in theaters. It seems like Netflix is cheating the system by making almost no effort at a theatrical run and then grabbing Oscar nominations. This movie grabbed a lot of Oscar nominations. It is good, about a couple with a child divorcing. People get divorced all the time and it is a horrible experience, but one that is ultimately necessary for them. And there is always drama especially as lawyers get involved. And this divorce is kind of like that as two people who want an amicable divorce find themselves in the middle of a nasty divorce. I’m not married or divorced but I have friends who are and this movie seems accurate. But the story of my friends is almost just as interesting, so I wonder what the point of this is. Despite the drama and emotion, plus court stuff, for some reason there aren’t a lot of divorce movies. Maybe the reason is that it is all a little too easy, too real, and too awful for anyone to want to go through for even two hours. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver are both good, but it seems almost inevitable since there are obviously going to be some big emotional scenes. The side characters are good and a lot of stars show up doing smaller parts, which is fun. Laura Dern plays a California lawyer who seems more like someone who just goes to cocktail parties than a lawyer, but is an interesting character. Ray Liotta and Alan Alda also play lawyers, each with an interesting take. So it is a big acting movie, which I usually don’t like and that is kind of the case here. I’ll give it a B for being well made, but it still feels a little too much like a television movie and not a real movie. And the material is a little too easy with both the husband and wife being in theater so that that show people that make up the Academy will love it even more. It seems more like a movie designed for actors than an audience.
Written: 19 Jan 2020