Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)

It's impossible for any film about the acrimonious divorce of a New York couple and the accompanying custody battle over their young son to escape comparisons with Kramer vs. Kramer, and Marriage Story doesn't try too hard to do so. The differences are superficial: here, they both work together in theatre, and it's her that takes off with the son, to L.A. With the characters firmly entrenched in a middle-class arts world that is so obviously the extent of what the director will be comfortable with depicting and there being no risk of them suffering real penury, navel-gazing would be an easy accusation, but there is a wide range of tonality too from scene to scene, and ultimately the film stands squarely on the excellent performances of Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, with solid support from Laura Dern and Ray Liotta as their toxic rival lawyers. All in all, it's quite moving, while at the same time highlighting once more what a twisted, parasitic business the American legal system is.

7/10