Marriage Story

Name: Marriage Story
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: November 6, 2019
Duration: 137 min
Rating: 94
Cast: Adam Driver, Alan Alda, Albert Jones, Ayden Mayeri, Azhy Robertson

2019

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 53 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 634 Ratings

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8.1

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8.1	User Score Universal acclaim based on 634 Ratings

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Marriage Story

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Movie Details & Credits

Netflix | Release Date: November 6, 2019 | R

Starring: Adam Driver, Alan Alda, Albert Jones, Ayden Mayeri, Azhy Robertson, Brooke Bloom, David Turner, Eric Berryman, Gideon Glick, Julia Greer, Julie Hagerty, Kyle Bornheimer, Laura Dern, Mark O'Brien, Mary Hollis Inboden, Matthew Maher, Merritt Wever, Mickey Sumner, Ray Liotta, Robert Smigel, Scarlett Johansson, Wallace Shawn

Movie Facts:

Nominated for six Academy Awards including best picture.

Summary: An incisive and compassionate portrait of a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.

Director: Noah Baumbach

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance

Rating: R

Runtime: 137 min

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Metascore

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

100

A.O. Scott

Nov 5, 2019

It’s funny and sad, sometimes within a single scene, and it weaves a plot out of the messy collapse of a shared reality, trying to make music out of disharmony. The melody is full of heartbreak, loss and regret, but the song is too beautiful to be entirely melancholy. Read full review

100

Neil Smith

Nov 15, 2019

Driver and Johansson face off to stunning effect in Baumbach’s finest feature to date. So good it hurts. Read full review

100

Moira Macdonald

Dec 2, 2019

Johansson and Driver are remarkably, heartbreakingly good in every scene; showing their characters’ journeys to an unflinching camera, letting the gap between them get wider yet unable, for their son’s sake, to completely walk away. It’s a drama playing out on two larger-than-life faces; a family torn apart, and yet enduring. Read full review

Polygon Karen Han

Dec 7, 2019

Baumbach takes the time to make room for their opposing viewpoints and experiences, and he creates a richer film for it. Marriage Story is beautifully bittersweet. There are no winners or losers in Charlie and Nicole’s separation, and no heroes or villains, either. Read full review

Peter Travers

Nov 6, 2019

How does a small tale of love found and lost emerge as a major triumph and one of the very best movies of the year? Marriage Story is more than just a career high for writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories, The Squid and the Whale); it’s a peerless showcase for its stars, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, who turn this tale of a contentious divorce into a "Kramer vs. Kramer" for the 21st century. Read full review

Richard Lawson

Aug 29, 2019

For all its strife and sorrow, Marriage Story is a generous film. It sensitively acknowledges the ways people fail each other, and the ways they don’t. It’s well worth your time. Maybe don’t watch it with your spouse, though. Read full review

Andrew Crump

Dec 19, 2019

Good as Marriage Story’s pieces are, they’re too finely curated: Baumbach rarely lets the film be as messy as it needs to be, hemming himself in with the threads of his limited perspective. Read full review

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User Reviews

gcatharino

Dec 12, 2019

The movie seems to be running on stage, like Broadway. Great acting in long and tense scenes, a very good screenplay and a some comic relief for a solid drama movie. Top 3 in 2019.

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

PalpetineSheev

Mar 20, 2020

One of the realest films ever made. Almost every scene is just characters sitting in rooms talking to each other, and it is more riveting than almost every blockbuster this year.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

PauloRicardo12

Nov 8, 2019

Excellent movie, with the best performances of the year, and with a direction that brings a strongly exciting movie. Best movie this year.

8 of 12 users found this helpful84

ali_khunaizi

Jan 13, 2020

I don't feel like i have the best words to express my experience here, for that i am overwhelmed by this masterpiece of art, It's one of thee most well produced in the history of filming, i assure you... Magnificent performance by all the actors, all of them have done the best here,I don't feel like i have the best words to express my experience here, for that i am overwhelmed by this masterpiece of art, It's one of thee most well produced in the history of filming, i assure you... Magnificent performance by all the actors, all of them have done the best here, including the compars (i'm not sure if i'm spelling it correctly),
Noah has done his greatest job ever as a director, and surely deserve the Oscar for it, It's a most see movie indeed.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

All_ButTrU4

Oct 13, 2022

A wonderful Kramer vs. Kramer adjacent tragedy about the consequences of divorce . Taking an unflinching look at what happens when two people in love who don't communicate finally break apart. The now iconic fight is the movie's centerpiece, both Scarlett and Driver are at their best andA wonderful Kramer vs. Kramer adjacent tragedy about the consequences of divorce . Taking an unflinching look at what happens when two people in love who don't communicate finally break apart. The now iconic fight is the movie's centerpiece, both Scarlett and Driver are at their best and truly shows how easily love can sour. It's easy to pick a side but I don't think it's the point, the point is that there is no good side ,divorce is a civil war. It's ugly,brutal and hateful but only because there was love there.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

RatedRex

Dec 8, 2019

Great performances by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. Some very good dialog. There a couple of unnecessary scenes. And it drags in a couple of spots. But, overall, it is a good cinematic experience.

1 of 5 users found this helpful14

StephenCrome

Dec 9, 2019

Last night I watched the first twenty minutes of Marriage Story. I love everyone involved in the movie so expectations were very high. But immediately, (IMMEDIATELY) the intrusive, BUSY musical score started to drive a nail into my head. Here were two monologues; letters written by the leadLast night I watched the first twenty minutes of Marriage Story. I love everyone involved in the movie so expectations were very high. But immediately, (IMMEDIATELY) the intrusive, BUSY musical score started to drive a nail into my head. Here were two monologues; letters written by the lead characters about each other. They were smart (if a little precious) and heartfelt and full of nice details. However, the entire time Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson were speaking, this wall to wall orchestra kept sawing away, frolicking and gamboling like a Rossini overture underlining the moments with 'whimsy' and the promise of 'heartache.' Like a bright yellow highlight pen, the music left no room for independent thought: I was being told exactly how to feel about every second. But I got through the opening bits; although I didn't quite buy any of the director/actor theatre scenes- Why is that no one ever seems to be able to capture the truth of what it's like to do small theatre? Those ridiculous rehearsal scenes were painful in their ostentatious inauthenticity...and don't get me started on the actual performance of the play. It was almost exactly like that old SNL sketch "Bad Conceptual Theatre" - If only Dan Aykroyd had stepped out as Leonard Pinth Garnell to give a review - Even more hilarious was the discovery in a later scene that this awful slice of "high art" was slated for Broadway. In what universe? But I stuck with it until the scene where Scarlett Johansson reminds her husband that she finds it difficult to cry onstage only to walk into her bedroom and burst into tears. This is a moment that should've wrecked me. It's beautifully set up, and would have been totally unexpected and rending. But at she walks through the hallway towards her bedroom, the score whips up into a Soap Opera ready string-filled cry of anguish so generic it could have been used for that old Carol Burnett sketch As The Stomach Turns. The camera pulls in to show Scarlett's tear-filled face - but any empathy is immediately sucker-punched to the ground by the hideously OVER THE TOP music.

Cut to: this morning as I scanned through the Golden Globe Nominations. Not only is that exercise in bathos and banality actually nominated for Best Original Score... It was written by none other than Randy Newman. Bummer.

If I make it through the movie it will be with the sound off and the subtitles on. I like to decide how I feel about things. I don't need to be smothered in kisses to know I am loved. And I don't need to be swaddled in a treacly, syrupy, honey-laden, jokey, telegraphing soundscape in order to understand that sadness or joy are on display. I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than that. My CATS are definitely smarter than that. It's no coincidence that Bennett coughed up three yards of hairball during the first thirty seconds of the movie.… Expand

2 of 13 users found this helpful211

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