‘MARRIAGE STORY’ INSPIRED BY REAL LIFE
The two main characters in Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” screening at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival at 10 p.m. Saturday before landing on Netflix Dec. 6, are getting a divorce, much as Baumbach and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh did in real life. So the film is about divorce, right?
Not so fast.
“I always thought of it as a love story,” Baumbach says. “I’ve been thinking for a long time of a new way to tell a love story. When something breaks down in your life, like a marriage, you stop taking it for granted.”
In the film, Adam Driver’s theater director and Scarlett Johansson’s TV actress spend the introduction to the film talking about how great the other person is. They then spend the rest of the film splitting up, in great detail, with many lawyers, and a small child. Much of the difference comes to geography: Driver’s Charlie wants to stay in New York doing theater; Johansson’s Nicole lands a plumb TV gig in LA.
But there’s more going on than that. In a way, Baumbach is right: This is a love story between two people who are determined not to hurt each other, but they aren’t successful. They have a small child, which makes things more complicated. They share friends, as is often the case in these matters.
Baumbach says his stars were key to the movie’s chemistry.
“It all took on this life of its own,” Baumbach says. “They both provided me with so much information. They’re very open about their own experiences, and they’re friends as well.”
Baumbach says he did plenty of research with lawyers, judges and other families. But he didn’t have to look that far for background information.
He divorced Leigh and is now a couple with Greta Gerwig, the star of his “Frances Ha.” His parents divorced; that was the subtext of his “Squid and the Whale.”
“I’ve been through a divorce,” he says wryly. “My parents have been through a divorce. So, of course, it’s going to feel personal.”
Or, as he says at another moment, “You rub together two stones of reality to get a spark of imagination.”
But the lawyers still have their part to play, and they’re played by some folks who have been around some. Nicole has Laura Dern. Charlie has Alan Alda and Ray Liotta. Elsewhere in the film you’ll find Julie Hagerty and Wallace Shawn. It’s a team of veterans that made Baumbach quite pleased.
“Everybody I wanted said yes,” Baumbach says. “They were all my first choices. It’s definitely an exciting part of my job, working with actors I grew up watching.”