The Invisibility of the Other In Marriage Story

Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story is the divorce story of the Barbers—Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver). Nicole is an actress who works in plays directed by Charlie. She decides to move from New York to Los Angeles after years of living an unfulfilled and subdued life in her marriage. The film depicts their story where the two of them fight a bitter divorce battle, something they had been wanting to avoid from the very beginning. With help from their aggressive lawyers, Charlie and Nicole scan their entire marital history looking for anything that could be used as dirt against each other to gain the custody of their child Henry (Azhy Robertson). Ultimately, they both realize that they could have sorted their battle by talking to each other circumventing the severe financial and emotional trauma that divorce put them through. Marriage Story is yet another film in the oeuvre of Noah Baumbach that deals with the disintegration of relationships.

Marriage Story narrates the story in which a couple consciously uncouples where they become invisible to each other. When Nicole narrates her story to her lawyer Nora (Laura Dern), she says she left Charlie because he "truly did not see" her. He never saw her separate from himself. In their marriage, she got smaller to the point she just became invisible. She realized that she didn’t really ever come alive for herself. Even when she gets a new television series, she has self-doubt as she starts assessing it, the way Charlie did. He always critiqued her work and her looks and in the process, Nicole just lost her own independent thinking. She became lost. Charlie forgot her even in the little moments. For instance, when he leaves the house after he gets his divorce papers from Nicole, he switches off the lights, leaving her standing in the darkness as if he does not see her again. Early in the film, Nicole remembers watching a documentary about The Beatles singer George Harrison and convinces herself that she will be like George Harrison's wife where she will try to be content with being a wife and a mother. But then she realized she couldn't even remember the name of Harrison's wife. She would be forgotten like her and decides that she will not be the invisible wife. In the end, Nicole finds success and recognition in her art as a director. And, when Halloween comes again, Nicole befittingly dresses up as one of the singers from The Beatles and not the wife because she has rediscovered her own forgotten voice.

After Nicole moves to Los Angeles, it is the turn of Charlie who becomes invisible to her. He is physically not present for his family. He has become the absent father. He is advised by his lawyers that courts don't take kindly to absent fathers like him. In her spiel about Mother Mary, Nora again brings this up when she remarks that God was the father and he did not even show up. In a particular scene, when he visits Henry and opens his arms wide for him to hug (like the scene from Lamhe), Henry ignores him as if he is invisible. During Halloween, Charlie literally becomes The Invisible Man, a character who is not seen. When Halloween comes again, Charlie dresses up as the ghost with a white sheet, where he is again not seen, just like he was The Invisible Man. Towards the very end, he is also removed from all the photographs at Nicole's place, just like she had suggested him to cut her off from their pictures from New York. They have become invisible to each other now.

A common reason that most marriages break is the infidelity of one of the partners. There is infidelity in Marriage Story as well, but it is almost a side note. It is not the primary reason that Charlie and Nicole broke up. Charlie had an affair with a co-worker but when Nicole narrates her story to Nora, she reveals this fact right at the end, as if it is an afterthought. During their long confrontation scene, this topic again comes but it does not seem to be that much of a deal-breaker for them. What struck me was during the fight scene, Charlie shrieks at Nicole, "You shouldn’t be upset that I fucked her, you should be upset that I had a laugh with her." This reminded me of a passage from Baradwaj Rangan's review of Karan Johar's Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna where he had written, "Rishi wants to know if Maya enjoyed sleeping with Dev, but Ria asks Dev if he’s in love with Maya; the man is more concerned with the sexual aspect of the betrayal while Ria, all woman, tries to come to grips with the emotional implications." Context is different here but it is worth mentioning that Charlie brings up the emotional aspect of his affair as well.

Sam Mendes' devastating Revolutionary Road depicted the harrowing story of the Wheelers, Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet), suffering from the monotony of marital life in suburban America. They decide to move to Paris to find a new purpose in their life. "We're running from the hopeless emptiness of the life here," Frank says about their plans. Things do not work out as the Wheelers planned and they start facing difficulties in their relationship where April eventually dies. The film truly brought out the hopeless emptiness of life. Marriage Story is about emptiness but it is also about hope. There is an emptiness in the film depicted by the minimalist design of the apartments and the hotels where Charlie stays. There is almost nothing there. Additionally, throughout the film, the characters keep talking about the advantages of space in Los Angeles as compared to New York. It also shows the literal and metaphorical distance that has come up between Nicole and Charlie. But Marriage Story is also about hope. It is about starting again and living life again. Nora motivates Nicole by saying, "I want you to listen to me, what you’re doing is an act of hope." By the end, Nicole becomes an Emmy-nominated director where people see her and listen to what she says. She finds her voice in her work which her marriage buried all these years. She finds a new paramour. At some stage, she even sings You Can Drive A Person Crazy from Company with her family. Though Charlie seems to suffer, he, too, finds his voice. He gets to sing Being Alive also from Company. Both Nicole and Charlie in a way have found their voices. The film also uses E.B. White's Stuart Little to depict this hope. In a sublime moment, Charlie reads a passage from the story to Henry and Nicole. He says, "The way seemed long, but the sky was bright. And he somehow felt like he was headed in the right direction." They both have moved onto different paths but it was for the best for both of them.

Marriage Story's most critical scene felt to be the one where Nicole and Charlie talk to each other about the issues in the marriage. Their conversation segues into a violent confrontation where they hurt each other by the brutality of their words and go to the extent of wishing for the death of the other. It is a visceral experience where years of bottled up emotions finally come out. There are frequent close-up shots in the said sequence giving a closer look at the expressions where they reveal their deepest fears and emotions. The film gives adequate time to both of them; however, it was Charlie who gained sympathy for his predicament but at the same time, Nicole does not come out as unreasonable or unlikeable. They both are a little right or a little wrong. No one comes out as a villain. In Kunal Kohli's Hum Tum, Arjun Kapoor (Rishi Kapoor) talks about the separation from his wife and says to Rhea (Rani Mukerji) that she must be thinking that he is a bura aadmi—vile man—for what he did to his wife. To this, Rhea replies, "Log bure thori na hote hai, acche logon par bas bura waqt aa jata hai." I was thinking of the same words during the movie as Nicole and Charlie are not really bad people; they are just going through a bad time bringing out the worst parts of their marriage story. Or, as they said, "Criminal lawyers see the bad people at their best. Divorce lawyers see good people at their worst."

The film also adds some easily readable scenes to bring about the differences between Nicole and Charlie. For instance, there is a particular scene where they close the gate of Nicole's house together with her on the inside and him on the outside making the obvious commentary on the state of their marriage. The gate is closing on their marriage. At some other stage point, Henry is shown to be literally split between the two of them like they do in a tug of war. Even the game they play is Monopoly, which as Noah Bambauch said in an interview, was like each of them is trying to monopolize over the other during their legal battle.

Even when they are fighting, Nicole frequently addresses Charlie as 'Honey'. In the midst of divorce proceedings, Nicole chooses the lunch option for Charlie when others are waiting for him to decide. She asks him if he wants her to cut his hair. She ties his shoelaces to prevent him from falling. At one stage, Charlie reveals that he is directing a play called Kasimir and Karoline, written by Ödön von Horváth. The play is about a couple whose relationship slowly disintegrates for their inability to express emotions to each other. The play's motto is "And love never ends." In the same vein, love has not evaporated from the relationship between Nicole and Charlie. Love is still there even though they have fought and separated. And, love will always be there even though they have moved on. Like in the end, a tearful Charlie reads Nicole's note about him where she had written, "I fell in love with him two seconds after I saw him and I’ll never stop loving him even though it doesn't make sense anymore." After all, it is not really love if it starts making sense.

Books In Movies:
1. Nicole reads The stories (so far) of Deborah Eisenberg by Deborah Eisenberg.

2. Nicole reads Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians by Mary Nash.

3. Charlie reads Stuart Little by E.B. White

Other Reading:
1. The script of Marriage Story—Link
2. Space and separation in Marriage Story

Dialogue of the Day:

"The system rewards bad behavior."
—Nora, Marriage Story

"You know what people say. Criminal lawyers see the bad people at their best. Divorce lawyers see good people at their worst."
—Ted, Marriage Story

P.S.— I was also thinking of Mansoor Khan's Akele Hum Akele Tum but realized that that movie lifted a lot of scenes directly from Kramer vs. Kramer.