Scarlett Johanson, in her best performance since Lost in Translation, and Adam Driver, in the peak of his career, star in this heartbreaking drama as a couple going through a divorce.
They are respectively an actor and a director living comfortably in New York. They’re keen to make the divorce go smoothly so as not to affect their son, but with entirely different visions of his future, this proves to be difficult.
This premise makes for familiar territory for director Noah Baumbach who specializes in dramatic storytelling of the intellectual upper-class (like his other Netflix movie The Meyerowitz Stories). Here, Baumbach made his best film yet.
Divorce is a recurring topic of our daily lives, but somehow there hasn’t been a movie that treated it with as little melodrama and as much compassion as this one. It’s still a difficult movie, but it’s good difficult. Perfect difficult.
"[The] blend of tones, with near-farce and emotional brutality blitzed together, is pure Baumbach, and he dishes it up for two hours straight."
— Anthony Lane
"It's a film of devastating cumulative power, even-handed and empathetic in its approach to two characters whose relationship has broken down, but who still want the best for their child and each other."
— Matthew Thrift
A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.
Other
1 nomination
Oh, this movie. Such a raw and real look into how rough and rueful divorces can be. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver excel so beautifully. I was sad and hopfeul and sad again then hopeful. Married, engaged, single or not, this movie is worth a watch.
P.S look out for the first scene with Ray Liotta (the male lawyer first consulted). He was just brilliant.
A great movie, real and raw with a fantastic cast. Unaffected and better for being unglamorous, the depth of emotion shown shows acting at its finest.
Was a very relatable movie that encapsulates all of the stages our generation mostly goes through. So many extremes of emotion. Adam driver is incredible, Scarlett May have not been the best casting choice here but the plot and series of events that are so everyday and menial amount to such a greater story.
Perhaps this movie isn’t titled correctly. Divorce story is more like it, and the actors are brilliant!
I liked how the movies started with both talking good about each other, this would be an ending in some romantic movies, you know happily lived ever after.
No the movie wants us to know that life is not like those Disney movie endings. If it was so there wont be any need for divorces at all.
When they married divorce wasnt even in their thought, now years later they feel trapped in their own devices and they just want to escape from it. And what is next best thing; divorce!. They or we dont know their life would be better than now. Nobody knows. No matter what things just happen. We just gotta carry on, gotta do what we gotta do.
Plus
I would absolutely recommend us to watch BEFORE TRILOGY, if you haven’t watched it already.
3 movies set 9 years apart in real time.
It gives us more perspective of how love love turns into fatigue.
It is from the same director who made boyhood.
Raw and brilliant. Spot on with the emotional roller coaster. Can not recommend highly enough. Both main actors are sublime in their respective character portrayals.
I am sure the acting was good but what a depressing movie. Done more like a play. I didn’t really like it. Just kept getting hit over the head, no relief.
What an incredible film. Editing, directing, performances, music all fantastic.
WOW. SJ and Ms. Dern are as always, amazing. And I love Adam Driver but his character really was kind of a “d” in this movie and never seemed to realize it. All the acting was real, raw, brilliant. I definitely recommend your time to watch.