Look, I'm in quarantine and I had nothing better to do, so I sat through all the 'Best Picture' nominated films from this year's and singled out 'Marriage Story' and 'Two Popes' as the only two movies out of that bunch that I didn't watch. And Marriage Story was a far better movie to sit down and watch than Two Popes in my opinion.
The acting was just...phenomenal. Everyone in this movie acted their chops off in the most heartbreaking way they could. Henry's actor (Sorry, forgot his name) just made me depressed in a heartfelt way. He was the hardest to watch in every scene because I just hated to watch him favor his mom in front of his dad, be fought over like tug-a-war, and looking lonely when he was with his dad. I just couldn't... I simply just wanted to cry with his presence if you understand. I hated having Charlie just watching his relationship with his son fade. Adam Driver, like the kid, broke me. At the beginning I semi-sympathized with Scarlett Johansson's Nicole, but by the middle towards the end, the movie easily made me side with Charlie, even though he's no better.
I get that in divorces there's a bad side to each person that has to shine at some point. And at each point, I did come to hate both the leads because of actions they've done, but at the end, they're just humans. They made mistakes, and now one wants to move on understandably. But yet, for the one who wants cling onto a broken relationship and attempting to keep a legal fight going, I sympathized with him more because it was tough watching him hit rock bottom to fight for keeping some form of custody with his son, while simultaneously losing everything and his whole life just to maintain custody.
But Nicole also deserves to move on with her life without having Charlie's life consume hers.
It got ugly between both sides for sure, and this was hard to watch. But it was a very solid story that made all for a good film worth watching, with a great set of acting and direction.
My only complaints would be that but felt too repetitive and slow at times and some scenes felt out of place and random. The crossfading was just awkwardly edited to move on to other scene too. But those were my concerns.
In other words, a nice heartwrenchig tale. One for memory. Not perfect, but still not too forgettable.
Final rating 8.4/10
The acting was just...phenomenal. Everyone in this movie acted their chops off in the most heartbreaking way they could. Henry's actor (Sorry, forgot his name) just made me depressed in a heartfelt way. He was the hardest to watch in every scene because I just hated to watch him favor his mom in front of his dad, be fought over like tug-a-war, and looking lonely when he was with his dad. I just couldn't... I simply just wanted to cry with his presence if you understand. I hated having Charlie just watching his relationship with his son fade. Adam Driver, like the kid, broke me. At the beginning I semi-sympathized with Scarlett Johansson's Nicole, but by the middle towards the end, the movie easily made me side with Charlie, even though he's no better.
I get that in divorces there's a bad side to each person that has to shine at some point. And at each point, I did come to hate both the leads because of actions they've done, but at the end, they're just humans. They made mistakes, and now one wants to move on understandably. But yet, for the one who wants cling onto a broken relationship and attempting to keep a legal fight going, I sympathized with him more because it was tough watching him hit rock bottom to fight for keeping some form of custody with his son, while simultaneously losing everything and his whole life just to maintain custody.
But Nicole also deserves to move on with her life without having Charlie's life consume hers.
It got ugly between both sides for sure, and this was hard to watch. But it was a very solid story that made all for a good film worth watching, with a great set of acting and direction.
My only complaints would be that but felt too repetitive and slow at times and some scenes felt out of place and random. The crossfading was just awkwardly edited to move on to other scene too. But those were my concerns.
In other words, a nice heartwrenchig tale. One for memory. Not perfect, but still not too forgettable.
Final rating 8.4/10