MARRIAGE STORY

OUT 24 AUGUST / CERT 15 / 137 MINS

A portrait of heartbreak in two halves, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story frames a divorce through the eyes of a couple previously so very much in love. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver give revelatory performances — he a theatre director from New York, she an actress wanting to move back home to LA — at once compassionate and prickly when everything starts to unravel. The nature of their separation is one that, though sad, is amicable at first, but then turns sour when the lawyers get involved. Laura Dern certainly earned her Oscar, as she brings her Big Little Lies sass to her performance as Nora Fanshaw, while Ray Liotta counters her with acerbic wit. Aesthetically, it’s gorgeous: cinematographer Robbie Ryan lenses empty spaces to devastating effect, while Randy Newman’s score is beautifully bittersweet. Baumbach has done it again: this might be his most powerful, moving film to date.