Marriage Story

The slow patient cultivation of specific general roles, patterns emerging as time passes becoming more rigid while still considered ill-defined, dynamic environs creatively encouraging unpredictable professional growth, but within their fluid energetic exciting jazzy continuums lies one person directing, and another following established codes, their lives constantly shifting reimagined as inspiration strikes, but the thought of doing something else never so much as remotely materializes, even though passive hints are presented until years have past and it seems like every decision's made without sincere consultation, even though he thinks he's listening and they're making joint discoveries, as fluctuating intensities eagerly fascinate, and everything's cast anew.

Perhaps a stunning aid for couples who have been married for quite some time, inasmuch as Marriage Story makes so much lucid sense, yet Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) still can't understand one another.

Noting the errors Charlie makes may save similar marriages, I've always thought working together (jobs) is a bad idea, although some couples do seem to work well together (at jobs).

Case by case.

But it's perhaps more probable that in Marriage Story nothing can be done, since one partner's too caught up with too invested in a particular way of life, which can't suddenly change to fit new circumstances, circumstances which demand he abandon everything altogether.

Nicole no longer wishes to live in New York, which leaves Charlie without much room to work with, in a bit of a pickle as divorce proceedings commence, and he has to prove he resides in L.A.

While directing a play in New York.

He was just too immersed in the limelight to notice that something was going wrong, or that the passive suggestions were actually serious, and required full-on responsive note.

I don't know how to sift through the suggestions myself, I've never really had a deep relationship, but in theory I'd try to sift through them by listening for those that were presented more than two or three times, if my partner was passive. If a suggestion popped up that many times I would take note that it was indeed much more than a suggestion, and would adjust my busy schedule accordingly, if forgiven for having taken my sweet time.

Charlie and Nicole get along so maturely you wonder why they're getting a divorce?, until it becomes clear Nicole needs something less ubiquitous, and doesn't like the constant direction.

Even if her husband's brilliant and nice.

I think she grows tired of him always finding a solution.

And perhaps finds her life's become a novel case study.

I'm probably incorrect, as Marriage Story points out in passionate detail with great supporting performances from Laura Dern (Nora Fanshaw), Alan Alda (Bert Spitz), and Ray Liotta (Jay Marotta) (loved the Julie Hagerty [Sandra] and Wallace Shawn [Frank] too!), women really understand what women are going through, and men generally understand all things bro.

It's a wonderful film examining a complicated multivariable couple trying to keep a hectic life simple as things unravel at their marriage's end.

It begins with touching characterizations they've both written about each other (a ruse) that provide in-depth accounts of the time they've spent together, with literal poetic resplendency.

Reasons.

Multiple compelling reasons.

The caring insights written into every observation prepare you for clever thoughtful storytelling that keeps it real the whole way through.

It isn't particularly light nor overwhelmingly dark, but chillin' and anger both expound within, each scene enacting free flowing difference sustained within a modest versatile frame (except for divorce court), as if the characters may actually exist, and have something irresistible to say.

Nice intelligent successful people who for some reason find themselves married, clashing with cold cruel realities with which they'd both rather not contend.

Artists hiring lawyers.

There's so much thought in this film it's like reading a good book, you wait for years to see dramas as good as this one.

The scenes last for much longer than 30 seconds.

Multiple reasons are provided to explain something neither partner wishes to fully comprehend.

Nice to see Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in something without intergalactic conflict.

Noah Baumbach's made so many great films.

This is his first masterpiece (I never saw The Squid and the Whale).

Even when it slips up it just seems like it's his youthful innocence shining through, like an historical trope, like he hasn't forgotten a randier style, here transformed into something more aged, the present and the past blended like well crafted gritty red wine, that's been maturing for fruitful decades, and's finally ready for bold presentation.

Wish I'd seen it in theatres.

Netflix can no longer be denied (by me).

While We're Young

Predictable contained pleasant enough maturity is injected with spontaneous jubilance as two couples at different stages in their lives start chillin' in Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, the art of documentary filmmaking bringing them together, one filmmaker trying to launch his career, another having been interminably editing and collecting new footage for a decade, cradling Borg perfection, creating an abstruse tome.

In search of truth.

The truth isn't necessarily fun, however, and the presence of youth rejuvenates struggling Josh (Ben Stiller), although a well groomed stubborn and proud persona still obfuscates, his outlook rigid and exacting, unable to incorporate the new.

When it becomes clear that Jamie (Adam Driver) isn't a student looking for a mentor, but a competitive force trying to gain access to Josh's more successful father-in-law (Charles Grodin[!] as Leslie Breitbart), the reclassification intensifies.

Hysterically.

Ideas.

Different Approaches.

What's going to work?

In terms of diligently orchestrating a text that's both fun and informative for a variety of different audiences anyways.

Which is what Noah Baumbach has done, again, with While We're Young, love his films, he diversifies this text with multiple characters playfully representing different sociodemographic domains, uses the differentiations to mischievously yet instructively comment on relationships, ethics, and art, the good sides, problems, making manipulation seem fun, just in time for a classic Ben Stiller freak out.

It's not just the couples who are contrasted with one another, but each couple pluralizes a dynamic of their own, within which each partner complements while contradicting the other.

As the streams cross.

Naomi Watts impresses again, don't see her in anything for years, then she shows up in 3 exceptionally cool films back-to-back-to-back.

Outstanding.

Frances Ha

Mismatched integrities and harmonious discrepancies awkwardly balance Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, infuriating yet emancipating missteps and miscues deftly choreographing the undatable's sprightly adaptation to bourgeois vignettes, which catalyze her own artistic vertices.

Forwards, backwards, backwards to move forwards, the other way around, friendships, apprenticeships, the rent.

A comment on commentary, budgets and bivouacs and biology belittling and embowering a transient sense of permanency.

Should one possess an exhaustive knowledge of French prior to reading Proust in order to fully appreciate his crystalline stylistic calaesthetic?

That's best case, but credit should be given to Terence Kilmartin, Andreas Mayor, and D. J. Enright for creating such an accessible English access point in the meantime, incomparably brilliant acts of translation, a poetic compliment to the gen(i)us of both languages.

Just sayin'!

Frances Ha buoyantly yet frantically dissolves convivial points of reference to magnify a being-in-becoming, a fluctuating, stable intransigist.

Dinner with the successful can be that painful.

Good food though.

Yum.

Greenberg

Presenting one of the most cohesive and uniform portraits of a self-centered asinine son of a bitch, Noah Baumbach's Greenberg is a blunt, comedic character study of a troubled messed up individual. Completely unaware and unconcerned with the social ramifications of causes and effects, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) problematically engages with the outside world according to his own set of unpredictable and obsessive rules. Enter Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig), a helpful confused relaxed yet energetic housekeeper with a big heart and a cheerful disposition. She meets Greenberg when his brother (Chris Messina) asks him to look after his place in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks while he travels throughout Vietnam. The two quickly commence an offbeat association and the film generally focuses on their mischievous miscues. You'll likely spend a lot of time wondering how she could possibly put up with Greenberg, as he consistently screws up every situation within which they happen to find themselves. In fact, Greenberg's strength lies in the lack of sympathy it develops for Greenberg. Baumbach crafts scene after scene where Greenberg lets his fabricated hang ups ruin the social interaction. But Florence sees something within which no one else can and keeps coming back time and time again, often reluctantly, always ready to give him a seventh or eighth chance. And through her devotion one learns to love (or at least tolerate) pesky Greenberg as he rashly applies his determination to whatever spur of the moment idea he suddenly considers compelling.