Work Text:
Dualism is the first thing that we can notice while watching the two different trailers that have just been released of Marriage Story. They talk about the same story from two different points of view. Charlie’s and Nicole’s. In this movie are also mentioned two different cities, that represents the two different protagonists. Even the posters of the movie are two. So, this movie has two souls. It wants to be a comedy but it also wants to sounds painfully real. And real stories are often raw and full of pain.
Marriage story talks about real life and… There is plenty of silly things. Many details that screams ‘reality’ from every cell. Because reality is complex and it use to surprise you more than imagination. For example, the relationship between Charlie and his son, sounds so real that it hurts. And I can say the same about Nicole. She is a very complex character and Baumbach had meant to let us know as much as possible about what she truly thinks and feels. The couple is going through a big crisis and we start to know about them when they are already to the point to divorce. They see a family therapist but it doesn’t seem to count, because for the major part of the movie, husband and wife put on a wall between them. Nicole in particular refuses to talk with his husband about anything.
She feels too oppressed. And then she asks to a ruthless lawyer [Laura Dern] to think about everything, and take the situation in hand. Nicol and Charlie never really talks. So, the movie is about the war between them to obtain the custody of their son…Yes, but there is much more than this! It talks about how it can make a breakdown of a relationship even more painful, and how a young boy can be affected from the constant dispute between his two parents. What school he should attend, what food he should eat, what city should be his home, what Halloween costume he should were.
And the two parents actually seems to forget that their son is not a price to win after the end of their personal war. He is a person self-conscious and capable to make his own decision, who highly suffers anytime he has to chose between his mother or his father and ends up telling them only what they want him to say, and not what he really wants or thinks. Then, there is this scene where Charlie and Nicole argue so strongly that it made me cry a lot.
Because it is the first time that the two of them actually talk in a very long time and so, when they finally discuss, it’s like a boom. They throw bad words at each other, they scream. And there is so much hatred in their words, so much love also. That scene in my opinion is the best of the movie. Then there are those scene…well…it’s difficult to describe. I can only say that the audience, in the theater, used to laugh very loudly anytime the realism of this movie flow into some silly situations that we are all used to experiment during our daily life, but that other people may not completely understand.
They are parts of our private lives and it couldn’t ever be any different. They also were a constant reminder of the fact that relationship between people are complicated. Families are complicated. And this is true for everyone. So this movie made me laugh and it made me also cry. It is deeply emotional and touching and powerful. But the right word I should use to describe it (as it pop up in my mind during the vision) is INTENSE. While I was watching, I had to put my hand upon my mouth in order not to scream at least three or four times. I think everyone should watch this movie. I liked it sooo much!