Though a smaller movie than some of the other Best Picture nominees, Marriage Story has still gotten plenty of acclaim for its raw, funny and touching look at a relationship dissolving. The film stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as a married couple going through a divorce that gets uglier and uglier as to continues.
The movie takes a realistic and captivating approach to this story which makes it entertaining at times and hard to watch at others. From conception to filming, the movie seems to have been a labor of love for all involved, making for a fascinating behind-the-scenes journey. Here are some things you never knew about the making of Marriage Story.
A Personal Story
Given how raw and real the story feels, it’s probably not surprising that the film is heavily based on real-life experiences. Specifically, the film is based on writer-director Noah Baumbach’s divorce from his wife, actor Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight).
Baumbach wanted to tell a love story in the context of a divorce and used his past relationship as a template. When asked if Leigh had seen it, Baumbach confirmed that she had and that she liked the movie.
Collaborative Storytelling
Adam Driver has had a knockout year in film in 2019, and he scored his second Oscar nomination for his incredible performance in Marriage Story. This film marks the fourth time Driver and Noah Baumbach had worked together, and this experience proved to be the most collaborative.
Baumbach came to Driver with the bare idea of the story years earlier, and as they both continued on with their respective careers, they would periodically check-in and discuss ideas and developments in the story. Driver and the other actors would be key in shaping their own characters in the film.
Art Imitating Life
Along with Adam Driver, the casting of the female role was incredibly important to the overall film. Scarlett Johansson and Noah Baumbach attempted to collaborate years earlier in a film that never ended up getting made. When Marriage Story began to take shape, she was his first choice for the role.
At the time Baumbach approached Johansson about the project, he was unaware that she herself was going through a divorce. She said that it felt like the right time to tell this story and the right time to work with Baumbach.
Laura Dern
While the two leads of the film are the main focus, many of the scenes are stolen by Laura Dern in a wonderful supporting role as Johansson’s lawyer. She is funny, sweet and intimidating all at once. Like Driver and Johansson, Dern joined the project before a script existed and helped create her role.
When shaping the character, the film based her on a real Los Angeles divorce attorney who oddly enough represented both Laura Dern and Scarlett Johansson in their respective divorces.
Speaking With Divorce Attorneys
Some of the most captivating and difficult scenes in the film involve divorce proceedings with the lawyers. Laura Dern, Alan Alda, and Ray Liotta play the various lawyers in the film, each showing a different and uncomfortable side of this process.
In order to capture what these legal conversations can be like without going too over-the-top, Baumbach would meet with actual divorce attorneys. He would explain the concept of the divorce at the center of the story then ask what kind of things these lawyers would target in the characters.
Script
It’s not surprising that the writing in the film has been getting some of the biggest praise. Baumbach wanted to take a unique approach to tell the story by starting with the marriage at its end and never flashing back to the early days. He also wanted the focus to first be on Johansson’s character so the audience would begin to side with her before switching Driver’s character and making him sympathetic as well.
The movie features several long scenes of dialogue and yet it’s always so captivating because it sounds so authentic. According to the actors, that realism is on the page as every word and pause are all scripted.
Greta Gerwig
Though the film is a dramatization if one of Baumbach’s relationships falling apart, his current relationship with Greta Gerwig proved to be a big help in making the film. Baumbach and Gerwig had collaborated as writers previously, and she starred in some of his films. Gerwig, of course, went on to become an acclaimed director herself.
While Baumbach was making Marriage Story, Gerwig was making Little Women and they would share their work with each other. Reportedly, after Gerwig screened this movie she simply sent Baumbach a photo of her crying after the first scene.
Handheld Opening Montage
The movie does have an emotionally powerful opening that draws you right into the story and its characters. We see the lives of this couple while they were together with each narrating about all the things they love about one another — before cutting to them in a meeting with a divorce mediator.
Unlike the rest of the movie, these sequences are shot with a handheld camera. The idea was to give these moments a more intimate feel. Baumbach explained that he wanted the things the characters highlighted in each other to feel like something only those close to them would notice.
Being Alive
One of the most acclaimed scenes in the film is a moving and unexpected musical moment when Adam Driver is in a piano bar with his friends and decides to belt out the tune “Being Alive” from Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Company”.
Both Driver and Noah Baumbach are big fans of the musical, and Baumbach even considered making it into a film at one point but could never figure it out. He decided to use it in this film as a way of allowing Driver’s character to express his sadness without having to say it out loud.
Big Fight
Certainly, the most explosive scene in the movie comes closer to the end when Driver and Johansson finally air out their frustrations with each other resulting in a brutal and destructive argument.
The scene required the two actors to build their emotions from relatively calm to explosive. In order to help them achieve this, Baumbach filmed the fight in a single take each time. Driver said it was shot like most films shoot love scenes with as small a crew as possible. In the end, the entire scene, including the wall punch, was filmed over a dozen times.
