MARRIAGE STORY

Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Merritt Wever, Ray Liotta

Writer- director Noah Baumbach has cultivated a comfortable groove as his generation’s Woody Allen, making elegant, witty New Yorker dramedies with New Yorker neuroses. But Allen, at his best, could step it up to make something a little more piercing and personal, just as Baumbach has done here. Seemingly inspired by the breakdown of his own marriage to actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, he delivers a compassionate, raw- nerved, sometimes savagely funny chronicle of what happens when a showbiz marriage ends. Awkward, self- involved theatre director Charlie ( Driver) and his frustrated, Californiacraving actress wife Nicole ( Johansson) don’t want to hurt each other as they embark on a purportedly civil divorce, but legal warfare and emotional blackmail somehow ensue. Thanks to gutsy, career- best performances by the leads, our sympathies ricochet between them right to the very end. 15 November