Review of Marriage Story (2019) by Stephencrome — 09 Dec 2019

Last night I watched the first twenty minutes of Marriage Story. I love everyone involved in the movie so expectations were very high. But immediately, (IMMEDIATELY) the intrusive, BUSY musical score started to drive a nail into my head. Here were two monologues; letters written by the lead characters about each other. They were smart (if a little precious) and heartfelt and full of nice details. However, the entire time Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson were speaking, this wall to wall orchestra kept sawing away, frolicking and gamboling like a Rossini overture underlining the moments with 'whimsy' and the promise of 'heartache.' Like a bright yellow highlight pen, the music left no room for independent thought: I was being told exactly how to feel about every second. But I got through the opening bits; although I didn't quite buy any of the director/actor theatre scenes- Why is that no one ever seems to be able to capture the truth of what it's like to do small theatre? Those ridiculous rehearsal scenes were painful in their ostentatious inauthenticity...and don't get me started on the actual performance of the play. It was almost exactly like that old SNL sketch "Bad Conceptual Theatre" - If only Dan Aykroyd had stepped out as Leonard Pinth Garnell to give a review - Even more hilarious was the discovery in a later scene that this awful slice of "high art" was slated for Broadway. In what universe? But I stuck with it until the scene where Scarlett Johansson reminds her husband that she finds it difficult to cry onstage only to walk into her bedroom and burst into tears. This is a moment that should've wrecked me. It's beautifully set up, and would have been totally unexpected and rending. But at she walks through the hallway towards her bedroom, the score whips up into a Soap Opera ready string-filled cry of anguish so generic it could have been used for that old Carol Burnett sketch As The Stomach Turns. The camera pulls in to show Scarlett's tear-filled face - but any empathy is immediately sucker-punched to the ground by the hideously OVER THE TOP music.

Cut to: this morning as I scanned through the Golden Globe Nominations. Not only is that exercise in bathos and banality actually nominated for Best Original Score... It was written by none other than Randy Newman. Bummer.

If I make it through the movie it will be with the sound off and the subtitles on. I like to decide how I feel about things. I don't need to be smothered in kisses to know I am loved. And I don't need to be swaddled in a treacly, syrupy, honey-laden, jokey, telegraphing soundscape in order to understand that sadness or joy are on display. I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than that. My CATS are definitely smarter than that. It's no coincidence that Bennett coughed up three yards of hairball during the first thirty seconds of the movie.