Nightmare Scenarios
Nominated for six Oscars, Marriage Story (2019) would have been more appropriately titled Divorce Story. Brooklyn born writer/director Noah Baumbach offers a penetrating, intelligent view of this nightmare. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver star as an NYC actress and director on the outs. They are excellent, as is the entire cast, including Azhy Robertson, another natural child actor, as the eight-year-old stuck in the middle. The chief driver of the problem is location. A native Californian, she has longed to move back home and is presented a perfect opportunity when a series offer comes her way. Although he grew up in the Midwest, he loves New York and the theater. There’s more to it, of course. The scenes I found the most fascinating were those with the lawyers, played by Alan Alda, Ray Liotta and the ageless Laura Dern, who won an Oscar in the role. I was reminded of Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), in which the storyline was not as balanced, Meryl Streep’s character clearly in the wrong. Baumbach did a great job of making his situation as close to 50–50 in terms of fault as can be. My main reservation is the length, 2:17. There are two scenes involving songs that tried my patience, one in which she performs with her mom and sister at her son’s school, the other of his doing a painful, impromptu night club performance, although the tune, Being Alive from Stephen Sondheim’s Company, fit perfectly. Also lending their considerable talents to the proceedings in support were: Julie Haggerty, Wallace Shawn and Merritt Wever. The box office numbers are shocking. Made on a budget of $18+ million, it returned only $333,686 worldwide. I’m sure that gap has been closed significantly by DVD sales and rentals and streaming. Word of mouth on the flick is strong. 224,000+ users at IMDb have rated Marriage Story, forging to a consensus of eight on a scale of ten. I’d seen only one other of Baumbach movies, The Squid and the Whale (2005), which is also about divorce. Curious about how the cast has fared in romantic life, I checked the bios. Scarjo is a two-time loser. Dern, Liotta, Haggerty and Baumbach have each been divorced once. Driver has been married several years. Alda has been married since 1957. Shawn and Wever have been single. Here are the three main principals in character:
This foxnews.com headline put a smile on my face: “New York Democrats angered after NYPD union endorses Trump.”
The left’s new Get Trump angle has him hamstringing the Post Office. Mail-in voter fraud is a key to their hopes. Maybe Russia is behind it.
It was a pleasant stay on Bay Parkway for today’s session of the floating book shop. For the first time in a while the heat and/or humidity wasn’t draining. My thanks to Neil of Dellapeppo TV, who bought the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cooking Basics, even though he didn’t need it; and to the gentleman who purchased three books in Russian; and to the young man who selected the DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003); and to the man who spoke no English, who chose a book on Goldfish; and to Ralph, who went home with three works of non-fiction. I don’t see him much now that he’s moved to Staten Island. He spent the pandemic putting a pool in his backyard, which he uses every day. He cut back from working six to seven days a week to five.
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