Noah Baumbach

Marriage Story: Till Life and Lawyers Do Us Part

Jeremy BeckReviews
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in "Marriage Story"

Marriage Story opens with a pair of sweet, complementary monologues. First, Charlie (Adam Driver) tells us what he loves about his wife, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), who then follows with a parallel recitation of what she admires about her husband. Both ruminations are full of affectionate detail and cute peccadilloes: how she leaves cabinets open, how he devours food, how they both play Monopoly like cutthroats. They’re the kind of quotidian observations that can only be amassed through the act of sharing a life, and they’re redolent with warmth and appreciation. Which makes it all the more shocking when these adoring speeches are revealed to be exercises suggested by a mediator, therapeutic assignments designed to mitigate the inevitable pain of their looming divorce.

Well, maybe not shocking, given who’s behind the camera. Even if you have no knowledge of the plot of Marriage Story—which chronicles the life cycle of Nicole and Charlie’s separation over 137 excruciating, beautiful minutes— so long as you’re aware that it was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, you’ll hardly be surprised by this sudden swerve into gloom. America’s poet laureate of marital and familial discord, Baumbach has devoted his career to exploring relationships—not just between couples, but also between parents and children, siblings, and friends—with a tricky combination of brutal honesty and wry comedy. Marriage Story is no exception; this is a film of lacerating insight and raw emotion. But it is also perhaps his most tender, least showy work (though Frances Ha may want a word). As ever, Baumbach refuses to sentimentalize his characters, but here he regards them with unprecedented empathy. In examining how two people break apart, he creates a sensation of togetherness. Read More

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The Meyerowitz Stories: The Kids Are All Wrong

Jeremy BeckReviews
Misery reigns in "The Meyerowitz Stories"

You might think, upon learning that The Meyerowitz Stories stars Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller—and that it includes a scene where the two slap-fight and wrestle pathetically on a university quad—that the movie is a stupid comedy. It isn’t, though it does feature a number of acrid laughs and a few displays of idiocy. Instead, The Meyerowitz Stories is another of writer-director Noah Baumbach’s incisive portraits of insecurity and indecision. As with many of his films, it’s sharply observed, making it more thoughtful than enjoyable; Baumbach’s talent for conjuring realistically flawed people is so pronounced that it becomes almost uncomfortable. Watching this astute, upsetting movie, you are likely to wince frequently, partly because its characters tend to behave terribly, and partly because you will recognize in them slivers of your friends, your family, and yourself.

Told in a seemingly patchwork fashion that’s deceptively coherent, The Meyerowitz Stories is in some ways a genealogical exercise, examining the strained relationships that form the branches of a cluttered family tree. The crusty patriarch is Harold (Dustin Hoffman), a sculptor of minor renown who is constantly explaining to polite listeners why his work is so underappreciated. He is more enamored of his art than of his three children, each of whom carries lingering scars and resentments from their childhood. Danny (Sandler) once had aspirations of being a musician, but he ended up a house husband, and he’s now crashing in his father’s Brooklyn brownstone after separating from his wife. His sister, Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), works a dull office job in Rochester but often drives down to the city to help keep the peace and laments that nobody pays attention to her. And their half-brother, Matthew (Stiller), long ago escaped the family’s suffocating New York vortex for LA, where he thrives as some sort of accountant (Baumbach is intentionally vague on the details) but battles marital woes and middle-age ennui. Read More

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While We’re Young: Growing Older, But Not Growing Up

Jeremy BeckReviews
Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts start in Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young"

The obvious irony of the title While We’re Young is that it’s a movie singularly fixated on the fear of growing old. Its hero is Josh (Ben Stiller), a fortyish documentary filmmaker who lives a life of relative comfort in New York City but is nevertheless plagued with anxiety, about both the specific utility of his work and his general place in the world. In other words, Josh is a lot like Noah Baumbach, the forty-five-year-old director of this bewitching, frustrating film. Like Josh, While We’re Young is smart, and it posits a number of interesting and worthwhile ideas. And, like Josh, it cannot entirely escape the nagging feeling that it’s just running in place, waiting for something to shake it out of its complacency.

In Baumbach’s recent movies, that something has taken the form of Greta Gerwig, the fearless and funny actress whose luminous, achingly vulnerable performance elevated Frances Ha from a crisply amusing cringe comedy into a startlingly humane coming-of-age story. Before that, Gerwig poured her heart into Greenberg, playing opposite Stiller, who delivered a career-best turn as a prickly and altogether unpleasant neurotic. Sadly, Gerwig is absent this time around, while Stiller reverts to his bland, inoffensive screen presence. His lead performance here isn’t bad so much as polite; an established star, he can coast on familiarity and charm, graciously ceding the spotlight to other, hungrier actors. In While We’re Young, he makes room for the magnetic Adam Driver, who plays Jamie, a boisterous aspiring documentarian who seems to idolize Josh. Read More

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