The Marriage Story – (about divorce)

Scarlett Johansson beautifully plays Nicole an actress who leaves her native California having achieved early fame and success and moves to New York to marry Adam Driver, called Charlie, a Brooklyn based and edgy theatre director. His theatre company benefit from the sparkle of Nicole’s early glamour and she becomes the lead actress in his increasingly successful theatre company but finds that her own ambitions are put on hold and that Charlie is increasingly self-centered and critical. There are problems in the marriage and Nicole and Charlie don’t have a physical relationship for a year, then Charlie has a one night stand with a stage hand and Nicole finds out about it having hacked into his emails. She is offered a pilot series back in Los Angeles and Charlie agrees to let her go back for a while with Henry to do the pilot on the unspoken assumption that both Nicole and Henry will return after the pilot. But it does not work out like that.

The film starts poignantly with Charlie and Nicole each reading out a list of things that they both love and admire about the other. We learn that they have prepared the list to discuss at a session with a mediator/counsellor with a view to reaching an amicable agreement but very quickly the mediation session breaks down and Nicole leaves feeling that the counsellor is biased against her. The film makes you laugh and cry, and both Charlie and Nicole’s characters have flaws and strengths. What unites them is their devotion to their son Henry and there is an undercurrent throughout, despite the divorce, of a residual affection for each other and a sense that had they taken the chance to communicate openly and safely about their hopes and desires on separation, an acrimonious divorce could have been avoided. They had it seemed both signed up to separate and deal with the finances and child care amicably without lawyers but that initial hope evaporated once Nicole instructed Nora, played by Laura Dern, a charismatic, ruthless and rapacious divorce lawyer.

Charlie was informed by Nora after he had not dealt with some initial communication from her that unless he instructs a lawyer the following day, he will lose custody of Henry and Nicole will go for all the finances. He must find a lawyer in California in a hurry and meets several lawyers only to find that they are conflicted out, Nicole has already seen them. At this point, we feel for Charlie who seems very much on the back foot. He eventually finds an affable lawyer Bert (Alan Alda) who seems quite sanguine and resigned to the process having himself married four times and divorced three times and who tells long rambling jokes about the car crash that is about to ensue. There is a round table meeting between the lawyers and their clients where the most Bert got animated about was the lunch option and then Bert takes Charlie into a side room and advises him to concede everything and accept that Nicole and Henry were now permanently in Los Angeles.

Charlie is frustrated and upset with Bert and decides to up the ante. He hires his own bulldog and in an unpleasant court scene both lawyers take pot shots at each other and their clients trying to dig the most dirt they can find to put pressure on the other and influence the judge. Charlie and Nicole look visibly upset during the court scene. Is this what they wanted, to expose publicly each other’s weaknesses and flaws with hired hands? Both Charlie and Nicole discuss openly with each other spending a huge amount of money on legal costs which neither could afford and which could have educated Henry, but they seem locked into a process that they cannot now get out of.

Charlie spends the next few weeks flying from New York to Los Angeles to see his son. There are heart breaking scenes when Henry does not like a Halloween outfit and Nicole refuses to allow them to spend Halloween together. A neutral evaluator (Martha Kelly) is appointed to report on custody matters who will sit and watch Henry with both parents and have a meal with them. The session with Charlie after he has hired a flat and filled it with plants seems to be going ok to begin with when Henry tells the evaluator that his daddy is brilliant at playing Lego and that Daddy show her the knife trick which is hilarious. Charlie duly takes out the knife but fails to retract the blade and slices open his arm which bleeds profusely. At that moment, there is an acceptance from Charlie that all is lost.

A deal is done, Nicole and Henry stay in Los Angeles and the rapacious Nora, does not even take Nicole’s instructions when she changes the custody arrangement that had been agreed (50/50) to 55,45 just because she could. When Nicole and Charlie sign the agreement there seems to be a hesitation with Nicole. Is this what she wanted?

The film does not come up with any answers on divorce or separation but shows the horrible effects of a disintegrating relationship and the impact that this has not only on children but on the wider family. One of the affecting aspects in the film is the close bond between Charlie and his mother-in-law which endures. The film also highlights the consequences of hiring a lawyer whose approach is brash and litigious and consequently expensive. It indicates how early open communication between Nicole and Charlie in the process of separation may have saved them a huge amount of stress, anxiety and legal costs. It shows that a move to court too early can entrench positions from which it is hard to resile. Fortunately, despite all this, Nicole and Charlie appear to end with a relationship of friendship and acceptance when Charlie takes the decision to relocate to California to be closer to Henry.

What seems very important at the outset of the separation becomes less so with time to reflect. The final finding of the list prepared by Nicole at the films beginning setting out all the things she likes about Charlie is very difficult to listen to without being moved. It is a film which makes salutary watching for all those involved advising clients in the divorce process and for all those going through or perhaps contemplating separating, it should be a Christmas must watch.

For further information, please contact Kerry: kerryfretwell@bexleybeaumont.com  |  07738697329