What To Watch On Netflix Thats New This Week (Dec. 1-7)

Sum-up: Most Academy Award prognosticators believe this will earn multiple nominations, including for Best Picture, screenwriting, directing and in the acting categories.

The movie certainly warrants the praise. Baumbach has created a hyper-detailed story about a painful topic, while still finding ways to inject humor into the direness.

Moments of pain are coupled with realistic absurdities. In a particularly fantastic scene, Nicole, her sister and her mother are freaking out about how the sister will, for legal reasons, serve the divorce papers to Charlie. A long list of complicating factors make this attempt a mess, but a few inspired ones include Charlie getting a text he won the MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” right beforehand, the sister getting nervous and holding a pecan pie for no reason and the son having pooping problems in the bathroom. After the serving occurs and Charlie is devastated, he asks what the pie had to do with everything. Nicole has to explain the pie wasn’t part of the plan. In a funny bit of dialogue, Charlie explains that somehow having the pie involved makes it all worse.

Well-executed and decently budgeted movies that tell small, realistic stories don’t happen much anymore. Sure, these characters are still wealthy and successful artists not exactly the most relatable of professions but the quiet plot of a family going through a painful breakup is a worthy story amid a sea of historical dramas and superheroes. That Baumbach finds a way to tell such a story in a fast-paced, engaging way is a testament to his talent.

Heads up: The movie centers around characters working in the theater and often has strong “theater person” vibes of over-acting and self-seriousness. The movie also features a movie cliche involving the actors walking around and “doing things” while having conversations that normally would simply involve two people sitting down and talking to each other. When done right, these movements make scenes look and feel more dynamic in movies, hence the cliche. When self-serious “theater person”-vibe characters do this though, the scenes come across as cringey.

Close-up: Early in the movie, while Nicole does a voiceover about what she loves about Charlie, the script has a strong moment of physical comedy. Nicole’s voiceover says that Charlie is very good and tireless about being a dad. Meanwhile, their son wakes up Charlie and says he has had a bad dream. “It’s okay,” Charlie responds.

Charlie lies down in the son’s bed, struggling to stay balanced while on his side. His son has a goofy pillowcase covered in colorful nobs like it’s a spaceship controller. The sheets feature comic book panels of “The Avengers.” The son seemingly falls asleep, but when Charlie gets up, the child asks him to stay.

So Charlie lies on the ground. The son joins him. Charlie gets up and lies back on the small bed. The son joins him again. This sweet, nearly wordless moment establishes the deep affection Charlie has for his child, which ultimately deepens the viewer’s understanding of the eventual pain in divorce.

History: The divorce between Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh was finalized in 2013. In 2016, Leigh told The Guardian , “I don’t think it’s that important for people to know” about the breakup. In the movie, the Nicole character praises Charlie for mining their life for his art.

Comparable Movie: Many comparisons have been made to the 1979 movie “Kramer vs Kramer,” which similarly featured a family of three going through a divorce. One similarity involves the separation occurring right as the male protagonist learns big career news. And although “Marriage Story” is more muted, the movie certainly has similarities to the 2011 separation movie “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” in that both movies mine comedy out of the characters’ haplessness.