ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Noah Baumbach

Marriage Story: Love Unraveled

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Marriage Story examines the fallout of Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole’s (Scarlett Johansson) failed marriage as they begin divorce proceedings. Though both of them want to ‘make this easy’ and ‘do what’s best for their son’, civility slowly begins to disintegrate by adding lawyers and looking out for their own interests. When Nicole moves from New York to Los Angeles to be with her family, things begin to unravel more rapidly, pushing them to their personal and creative extremes.

Written and directed by Noam Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories), Marriage Storyworks on every level and may be the best film of his career. Known for his signature awkward banter and flawed characters, Baumbach paints a portrait of what happens when what once was a loving marriage is exhumed at the hands of lawyers and bitter hearts. Anchored by Oscar-worthy performances from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, Baumbach showcases all the messiness of a divorce without ever taking sides or simplifying the arguments. In Marriage Story, there are no heroes or villains. Instead, there are only two people attempting to navigate all the pain and frustration that comes with ending their relationship. Rather than bog down the viewer with flashbacks and very little backstory, the film focuses entirely on the present and what has to happen next in order for this family to find a new space for success and healing.

Unlike other tales of divorce, Marriage Story chooses not to focus itself on one particular event that drove the relationship apart. Although there was one instance of marital infidelity, Nicole and Charlie’s marriage has not been destroyed over a moment. Instead, through lawyers and filtered conversation, the story speaks to how a marriage can unravel over multiple issues and arguments when love and humility give way to pride and frustration. Though both Charlie and Nicole are good people who genuinely want to work things out in the best way possible for their son, they also slowly begin to fight for the high ground in the divorce settlement. Gentle discussions that took place during their marriage such as where to live become full blown battlegrounds when the lawyers get involved, forcing Charlie and Nicole into greater and greater odds. In arguments such as these, the film highlights the perils of being entrenched in our own perspectives, especially when the solution only serves our interests. While the film offers no ‘answers’ about love, it clearly points to the fact that relationships fall asunder when both people cease to listen to one another and humbly seek a solution. In other words, if love, as they say, really is patient, kind and not self-seeking, Marriage Story shows what happens when those things become lost over time.

Pulling no punches with the awkward realism associated with divorce and starting over, Baumbach’s Marriage Story shows that when love is unraveled, the remaining anger can be a force to be reckoned with. Despite beginning with the best of intentions, the pride and bitterness of divorce can quickly cause caring people to fight tooth and nail for their rights, even at the expense of others. Honest, searing and hilarious at times, Baumbach has spun a story that shows the true pain of family separation while also showing what a couple needs to do in order to begin again.

Marriage Story plays in theatres starting November 6th, 2019. It will also stream digitally on Netflix as of December 6th, 2019.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

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The Meyerowitz family has spent their lives talking past each other. How can they find ways to say the important things that must be said? Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is a comic, yet painful look at a family that must struggle to get past a lifetime of the barriers they have built between each other.

The film is an ensemble piece with a strong cast. Family patriarch Harold (Dustin Hoffman) is a little-known sculptor and retired art teacher. He is defined by his outsized sense of importance. His son Danny (Adam Sadler) is moving in with him after Danny’s daughter heads off to college and Danny and his wife separate. Danny’s sister Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) leads a peaceful suburban life. Danny’s half-brother Matthew (Ben Stiller) is a well-off West Coast money manager. (Others rounding out the cast are Emma Thompson, Judd Hirsch, Grace Van Patten, and Candace Bergen)

All three of the children have issues with Harold. They also have issues with each other. As the film progresses these issues become apparent, but when Harold’s health fails, they must learn to bridge the emotional chasms that have grown through the years. Many of the problems involve Harold’s self-absorption. His ego seems to believe that all the world should revolve around him. He notices almost nothing about those around him. Because of this, conversations are often two people talking about different topics, never hearing what the other person is saying.

These scenes are comic, but they make for a painful comedy, because they grow out of the suffering that each person has buried for so long. Hoffman, Sadler, and Stiller are all accomplished in comedy, and it serves the film well to have them in these roles, even though it is much more somber than we are used to seeing them.

This focus on lack of the ability to communicate with each other is the foundation for the most powerful section of the film in the last third, after Harold’s health suddenly becomes a serious concern. The siblings, each in their own way, must find their paths to say goodbye to the father that has been such an aggravation to them. As it so often the case, the animosity is interwoven with the love they each feel for their father. That complexity creates a struggle far more difficult to deal with than the frustrations they felt when Harold was healthy. The struggle with impending grief adds yet another layer of pain to the dynamic. As the closing credits roll, Randy Newman’s song “Old Man” plays, which provides an excellent coda to this tragi-comedy.

The film is showing in select theaters and also streaming on Netflix

Photos courtesy of Netflix

 

Surviving Winter’s Dream: An Interview with Timothy Lee DePriest

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Timothy Lee DePriest isn’t new to the Hollywood scene.

With guest roles in shows like Sons of Anarchy, Southland, and many more over the years, he’s more than familiar with the challenges of breaking into the industry. However, with starring roles in the sci-fi film, 2307: Winter’s Dream, and HBO’s mega-hit series Westworld, DePriest has finally stepped into the limelight. With all the attention, he admits that the sudden notoriety has been somewhat overwhelming.

“I’m [thinking] ‘What just happened to me?’” he remarks. “That [first] Westworld episode aired on a Sunday. On the Wednesday, I got a call from a director that wanted to meet me and that’s never happened to me before. It’s just so weird.”

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“Just to be on set with Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, Geoffrey Wright, you learn so much. You see how it’s really done. Ed Harris is the coolest guy in the world and it just looks effortless to him. He’s just being [so] natural. So, that came along around the same time [as 2307] and it takes a couple of years so I wasn’t even sure what would happen with those things.”

With the release of 2307: Winter’s Dream, DePriest continues his work within the sci-fi world. Still, what excited him most about the project wasn’t the post-apocalyptic storyline or the epic action scenes. For him, the most appealing aspect was the opportunity to work with director Joey Curtis.

“I was really excited because [of] Joey,” he responds. “When I first learned about the project, just hearing his name and that he was involved with BLUE VALENTINE was a big sell for me because I love that movie. I’m always looking to do more quality stuff.”

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 2307: Winter’s Dream takes place in the year 2307—or 141 years ‘after man killed God’—as earth has become a barren, frozen wasteland. Forced underground by the extreme cold with a depleted population, mankind creates the ‘Humanoids’, superhuman slaves bio-engineered to stand up to the harsh conditions. When rogue humanoid named ASH-393 escapes from captivity, a team of elite military operatives, including Ishmael (DePriest), is sent into the ice-covered wilderness to eliminate the leader and the ensuing Humanoid threat.

Although science fiction isn’t necessarily his favourite genre, DePriest admits that the chance to star in films like this (or series such as Westworld) is something that he really enjoys and wouldn’t want to pass up.

“It’s odd because the films I like—and the reason I got into the business— are these scrappy, weird little films like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I love Jim Jarmusch’s early films, Aronofsky, Jonathan Glazer, Noah Baumbach. I like these indie, character-focused films but, of course, I love to have fun. When you’re doing sci-fi, you’re [basically] playing a superhero and that is extremely fun.“

Of course, ‘fun’ isn’t always the case when shooting a film like this, especially when it takes place in the midst of a glacial, post-apocalyptic desert.

While many of the indoor scenes were shot in a Los Angeles studio—DePriest muses that it was funny to be wiping away their sweat “because we were all bundled up shooting in Southern California”—the majority of the film takes place outdoors.

In the middle of nowhere.

In the snow.

Amazingly, the director found what he needed in an almost unexpected location: Buffalo, New York. Filming shortly after the infamous ice storm of 2014, DePriest explains that they were able to get the right effect by shooting on top of frozen Lake Erie.

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“We had to wait until we could actually physically go there,” he recalls. “[Due to the weather], we would have died because it was so cold. We came in the spring but it was still cold, and we shot on frozen Lake Erie. We were just outside Buffalo and we stayed in the cabins [of a nearby Christian camp]. The lake was right behind there and they would take us a mile out in snowmobiles to the sets that they’d built out there and we shot on Lake Erie. It was about negative 20 with wind chill. I was wondering how they would do that and it made so much sense being out on a frozen lake. It looked like there was no one out there. It was such a great location.”

With this in mind, DePriest also feels that science fiction also opens up doors for conversations about our current culture as well. In other words, while the film maintains an aura of fun, he also believes that 2307 also speaks to issues about human rights and how we treat the disenfranchised in our world.

“I had a friend who just came back from Greece and she was working with Syrian refugees. We’re all trying to find a place and, man, when you’re not wanted. Her frustration was that nobody wants these people. Why don’t we want them and how do we deal with that? It’s kind of the same deal with the humanoids. We created them and we think we own them and that we can just toss them out.”

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Somewhat ironically, while 2307 claims to take place in a time after ‘man killed God’, the film also lands on a distinctly existential question by asking who has the right to a ‘soul’. Although he, himself, doesn’t hold any specific spiritual worldview, DePriest also recognizes that this search for the soul can be a source of hope and healing.

“I went through a really dark time in my life where I was going off the rails in Hollywood, throwing myself into every excess, and I kind of hit a wall. The only thing that saved me was kind of going within. I guess that… every religious practice is like that where you try to find meaning and that soul within is probably a good place to start. For me, that’s what it feels like.”

With a hard-working attitude and a strong sense of hope, Timothy Lee DePriest seems ready to leave his mark on Hollywood. From Westworld to 2307: Winter’s Dream, he is grateful that he continues to have the opportunity to tell stories that matter.

photo by Audi England