The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, December 6, 2019 — 5

Noah Baumbach is no stranger to divorce. His 
2005 film “The Squid and the Whale” chronicles 
the experiences of a Brooklyn family adjusting to 
the separation of two parents; it is hilarious and 
heartfelt, and I love it. However, there is admittedly 
something “off,” 
something 
unreal about the 
family it depicts. 
The 
way 
its 
characters speak 
and 
interact 
with 
each 
other is close to 
reality, but just 
slightly 
askew 
from it. Across 
his body of work, 
Baumbach 
still 
manages to get to a real, profound emotional core in 
spite of the unbelievability of his characters, much 
like Wes Anderson does in his films. 
There’s something different about “Marriage 
Story,” Baumbach’s latest film. It’s not necessarily 
better, just different. For lack of a better word, the 
divorce that ensues in “Marriage Story” is infinitely 
“realer” than the divorce in 
“The Squid and the Whale.” 
Unlike the latter, “Marriage 
Story” is fiercely committed 
to realism, and its two leads, 
Adam Driver (“Paterson”) and 
Scarlett Johansson (“Under 
the Skin”) lose themselves 
inside of the alternate reality 
Baumbach creates, and I can’t 
think of any two actors or any 
director I’d rather get lost 
with. 
As Driver aptly put it in a 
recent interview with Stephen 
Colbert, “Marriage Story” is a 
love story, but one that is told 
through the lens of a divorce. 
Driver 
and 
Johansson’s 
characters, Charlie and Nicole, 
are a married couple and 
parents to their son Henry 
(Azhy 
Robertson, 
“Juliet, 
Naked”). Apart from their 
son, they are highly involved 
in New York’s theater scene: 
Charlie directs, Nicole acts. 
For a plethora of reasons too 
complicated 
to 
adequately 
address here, Nicole decides to 
divorce Charlie and move her 
and her son to Los Angeles, 
where she grew up. What 
happens next is unpleasant to 
say the least. 
Divorce 
tends 
to 
bring 
out the worst in people, and 
“Marriage 
Story” 
is 
well 
aware of that. Charlie and 
Nicole throw words at each 
other 
like 
daggers. 
Their 
passive aggression builds and 
builds until the point when it can’t anymore, and 
what results will take your breath away. The sheer 
intensity of their shouting match rivals any battle 
scene you’ll ever see. Charlie and Nicole, caught 
up in their anger, transform into something that is 
terrifying to witness. Watching Driver scream at 
Johansson, it is beyond clear that he is no longer 

himself. He’s not even his character anymore. He 
is rage. His is the kind of performance people will 
flock to “Marriage Story” to bear witness to. He 
will be nominated for an Oscar, and he deserves to 
win it. 
Even though Charlie and Nicole sink to the 
depths of depravity when they finally lose control 
over their anger at one another, they are still, in 
spite of everything, good people. After all, one of 
the 
very 
first 
things Charlie’s 
divorce 
lawyer 
(Ray 
Liotta, 
“Goodfellas”) 
tells him is that 
divorce lawyers 
see 
the 
very 
worst parts of 
good 
people. 
We know they 
are good people 
because they are 
both, all in all, 
great parents who are devoted to their son. We also 
believe in their goodness because we know how 
much they once loved each other, and probably even 
still love each other. We know how much love they 
are capable of. 
The film begins and ends with the reasons why 
Charlie and Nicole love each other, written down 
by both of them as an assignment 
from their separation counselor. 
Baumbach doesn’t want us to 
forget them, even when Charlie 
tells Nicole he wishes she were 
dead. In a particularly poignant 
moment, 
Charlie 
reads 
out 
Nicole’s reasons for loving him. 
She writes, “I fell in love with him 
two seconds after I saw him.” A 
tear slides down Charlie’s cheek. 
There’s that famous statistic 
that 
says 
that 
half 
of 
all 
marriages end in divorce. In 
all likelihood that statistic is 
outdated, and it wouldn’t be 
surprising if the success rate 
of marriages has gotten even 
smaller since. Divorce is no 
longer the exception, it is the 
rule. So why do we even bother?
Baumbach 
seems 
to 
have 
his own reasons why. In an 
interview with The Guardian, 
Baumbach describes marriage 
as “a great act of hope.” But how 
can that be possible, how can we 
be hopeful when the chances 
of a successful marriage are so 
small? Maybe Baumbach wants 
us to reconsider what it means 
for a marriage to be “successful.” 
Maybe the goal of marriage 
shouldn’t be longevity. Maybe it 
should be happiness, for as long 
as that is possible. Maybe the 
expectation of lifelong happiness 
only serves to sour the present 
moment. 
I’ve 
been 
thinking 
a 
lot 
about why this movie is called 
“Marriage Story,” not “Divorce 
Story.” We hardly get any glimpse into Charlie and 
Nicole’s life together pre-divorce. But perhaps that 
is the point. Perhaps divorce in the 21st century 
is just as much a part of a marriage as the actual 
marriage itself. Perhaps separation is inevitable, 
or if not inevitable, likely. Maybe that’s okay — 
“Marriage Story” seems to think so.

‘Marriage Story’ is different
for Baumbach, but it’s lovely

ELISE GODFRYD
Daily Arts Writer

I watched “The Talented Mr. Ripley” recently, 
and it was absolutely heartbreaking. Despite the 
titular character, played by Matt Damon, Tom’s 
propensity towards violence and the seemingly 
never-ending string of lies that he finds himself 
needling over the duration of the film, the core of 
his character is one riddled with a sense of deep 
longing and loneliness. He spends the entire 
story trying to lie his way into a life that’s always 
just out of reach.
The father of a dilettante run off to Italy, Dickie 
(played by Jude Law), hires Tom (after being led 
to believe that he went to school with his son) to 
find said dilettante and bring him back to New 
York to rejoin his family’s shipping empire. Of 
course, things do not go according to plan. Tom 
and Dickie become fast friends, and the former 
develops an obsessive infatuation with the latter. 
The rest of the plot is complicated and, hey, that’s 
what Google’s for, right? The four people reading 
this article don’t need a synopsis from the likes of 
me. What matters is that the film fits in squarely 
with a storied history of queer narratives 
dominated by a sense of confused desire, at the 
very least fraught, operating in a landscape of 
imbalanced power, and often unrequited.
These types of films are almost like a right 
of passage for presumably straight male 
heartthrobs: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, 
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (2 for 1 
special), Ashton Sanders and now Timothee 
Chalamet, to name a few, have all joined the Gay 
for Pay Hall of Fame, and it’s not a stretch to say 
that all of them have enjoyed a boost in their 
profile for having done so. Depending on who 
you ask, this isn’t necessarily a phenomenon 
worthy of unequivocal condemnation, and 
my critique isn’t directed towards any one of 
these actors of even of the movies themselves, 
but moreso towards an inquiry into the 
dynamics that create a draw towards these 
types of narratives and the guaranteed celebre 
reserved for straight actors who choose to take 

on gay roles.
According to a report by Lyst, Timothee 
Chalamet is the most influential man in fashion 
in 2019. The Vogue article announcing it features 
Timmy boy in a sequined hoodie from Louis 
Vuitton by Virgil Abloh, which was apparently 
commissioned via text. He looks on to the 
cameras covering the red carpet premiere of The 
King that he graces with a deadpan expression, 
fully aware of the power he wields.
It’s impossible to imagine this Chalamet-
steeped reality that we live in without his 
Elio, which quickly earned him an Oscar 
nomination and a continued award show/
premiere partnership with both Louis Vuitton 
and Haider Ackerman, the combination of 
which has afforded him the kind of internet style 
icon status that he will be able to cash in on for 
years to come. This might not have worked in 
the way that it did had he been openly, “visibly” 
gay or even speculated to have been in a same-
sex relationship at the onset of his career. The 
possibility that an actor might experience same 
sex attraction, the interest that yields, along 
with the seemingly enchanting nature of a 
semi-masculine, young, boyish actor being able 
to reasonably act out a same sex relationship on 
screen without showing any evidence that such 
an impulse may have been drawn from real life 
seems to be nothing short of catnip for the media 
circuit.
It’s almost as though the concept of 
homosexuality, particularly male homosexuaity, 
is more attractive to the masses than actually 
being homosexual. The profitability, or at least 
the sheer ability for those expressing genuine 
homosexual desire to find success in the 
entertainment industry, is certainly changing, 
but recent years have provided more than 
enough evidence to suggest that the curiosity 
of what might be is more interesting, more 
consumable, than the real thing. It’s almost like 
we could be supporting queer art that really 
says something and supports the communities 
whose stories they seek to tell, but we’re all 
collectively opting to see a big budget version of 
Czech Hunter instead.

Authenticity & Jude Law

VELVETEEN DREAMS: STYLE COLUMN

SAM KREMKE
Daily Style Columnist

Marriage Story

State Theatre

Netflix

Few works have struck me as much 
after my first viewing as did “Slave Play,” 
Jeremy O. Harris’s radical, complex, 
controversial work at the Golden Theatre 
on Broadway. As I left the theater this 
past weekend and began my five-hour 
journey back to Ann Arbor, I struggled to 
understand what I’d just witnessed.
By the time I’d boarded my flight from 
JFK, I knew that I wanted to address this 
work in my next column. But what could 
I possibly say in a column intended for 
readers that have not necessarily seen the 
work, I asked myself. What could I say 
that this play had not already said?
One aspect of the play that I realized 
had so intrigued and confused me was the 
naked simplicity of much of the dialogue, 
with much of the actions taking place on 
stage and the emotions that propelled 
characters to take those actions.
As 
I’ve 
mentioned 
before, 
I 
am 
currently in the process of co-writing a 
musical. My co-writer and I frequently 
discuss the concept of “show, don’t 
tell,” something that we’ve been told is 
essential to realistic theatrical writing. 
It’s something that we consider in 
our dialogue, our lyrics and our stage 
directions. In “Slave Play,” however, the 
opposite was true. Not only did Harris 
take no steps to make the dialogue subtle; 
in many instances, I would argue, he took 
great pains to ensure that the dialogue 
and plot were entirely unrealistic. This 
technique was so unexpected that it took 
me a little while before I could fully wrap 
my mind around it.
The first section of the play, for 
example, 
follows 
three 
interracial 
couples as they engage in various sex 
acts. The three Black characters embody 
horrific antebellum stereotypes — a 
female domestic slave, a male domestic 
slave and a sharecropping overseer — far 
past the point at which many audience 
members felt uncomfortable. I found 
myself incredibly put off by this first 
section; at points, I almost contemplated 
disengaging completely from the work, 
either by leaving the theater or by 
ceasing to pay any attention. The racist 
underpinnings of these characters were 
absolutely 
revolting, 
and 
I 
couldn’t 
understand why Harris hadn’t twisted 
them in some way.
Theater 
audiences, 
particularly 
Broadway audiences, are conditionally 
trained to search for subtlety, for witty 
conceits and covert nods to larger 
sociopolitical 
themes. 
But 
Harris 
had spent the first hour of the play 
mocking this. He’d staged three simple, 
dismayingly stereotypical interracial sex 
scenes in front of a large mirror; the joke, 
the mirror seemed to say, is not the action 
on stage but the audience’s reactions 
being reflected back at them.

The transition to the next section, 
however, put everything in perspective. 
Two doors at the top of the set opened to 
reveal two therapists/research scientists 
— the horrific, racist-infused sex acts were 
revealed to be part of the “antebellum 
sex therapy” that the three inter-racial 
couples had enrolled in. Harris’s nearly 
hour-long first section was so overtly 
racist, so nakedly offensive, that it had 
begun to lose almost all meaning. These 
stereotypes were being unapologetically 
thrust upon the audience; the results were 
incredibly upsetting. As the characters 
on stage left their therapeutic fantasies 
and reentered the literal world, however, 
the audience’s explicit knowledge of the 
racial underpinnings of these characters’s 
relationships hovered over the scene.
It was almost impossible not to view 
everything that occurred after this point 
through the prism of race. And for the 
next significant portion of the play, as 
the characters struggled to articulate 
their true feelings in their group therapy 
session, the audience analyzed every 
word for its racial submeaning.
As the group therapy session evolved, 
and as the Black characters came to their 
own frightening understandings of the 
unequal interracial relationships they 
shared with their partners, the subtlety of 
the dialogue turned once again. The racial 
overtones that the audience had sought 
so diligently to pull out of the frequently 
humorous dialogue of this second section 
were painfully overt once again. I found 
that I almost had analytic whiplash at 
this point — I’d spent so much energy 
trying to understand the implications 
of the past half hour of dialogue that 
I was completely overwhelmed by the 
obviousness of this new dialogue.
I read recently that an audience 
member 
got 
in 
an 
argument 
with 
Harris during a talk-back after the 
play regarding its treatment of white 
people, specifically white women. Harris 
responded by thanking the woman for 
her great “performance,” describing it as 
“Slave Play, Part 2.”
And while his statements were no 
doubt intended as a joke, it’s hard not to 
take them seriously. The woman’s angry, 
profane rants about the marginalization 
of her and other white woman would 
normally have been humorous — after 
this incredibly conspicuous play, her 
statements seem fitting. It was another 
instance of overt controversy in a work 
mired in overt, explicit statements about 
race and sexuality.
Harris’s explicit methodology, I began 
to realize, is part of his message. In a 
country in which we frequently tiptoe 
around conversations about race, Harris 
reminds us of how explicit and racist 
the forces behind our conversations can 
be. Life is much more obvious, he seems 
to tell us, than the dialogue that we 
frequently see on stage. When it comes to 
race, he suggests we must tell, not show.

Telling versus showing

COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Community Culture Column

NETFLIX

Charlie and 
Nicole throw 
words at 
each other 
like daggers. 
Their passive 
aggression builds 
and builds until 
the point when 
it can’t anymore. 
The sheer 
intensity of their 
shouting match 
rivals any battle 
scene you’ll ever 
see.

NETFLIX

FILM REVIEW