Helpful Advice For The Husband From ‘Marriage Story’ (2024)

FAQs

What is the message of the movie "Marriage Story"? ›

Marriage Story, ironically, is not a story about marriage. It is a story about separation and how seperation salvages the love and respect between the two main characters. It turns out that Charlie and Nicole have not fallen out of love and instead, their relationship as a family grows stronger after the divorce.

The reality of their dynamic is more complicated and has been troublesome from the start. Charlie is a narcissist and master manipulator who has always considered Nicole to be a supporting player in Charlie's Life Story.

In Marriage Story, the very concept of love is gaslit. Just as director is Charlie's double, actress is Nicole's. Both of these doppelgängers intrude on the melancholic couple's lives in order to separate them. Indeed, being Charlie's favorite actress is one of the reasons Nicole wants to flee the marriage.

At the end of the film, after the viciousness of their split and custody battle has been dealt with and the divorce granted, Charlie goes to visit them and Henry shows his father his mother's list of the things she liked about him.

Speaking of writing the film following his divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, as well as his parents' divorce (which served as inspiration for his earlier film The Squid and the Whale), Baumbach said: I have a real connection to the material ...

A couple battle real issues they never bothered to discuss before rushing into a marriage which now heads for the rock with neither of them willing to compromise on their distinct views.

This film is about two people who love each other, but who can no longer live together. The primary antagonist here is society (represented by the lawyers, the judge, the social worker, Nicole's family and even the actors in the theatre company).

Both Nicole and Charlie's actions are motivated by love for their son. If Nicole is getting a shark of a divorce lawyer who knows the system, it's not because Nicole is the bad guy but because Charlie has forced her hand with not taking her seriously just as he didn't take her career ambitions seriously.

That evening, after attending a Halloween party together, Nicole offers to let Charlie take Henry home even though it is her night with him. As Charlie walks out to his car carrying a sleeping Henry, Nicole stops Charlie to tie his shoe for him. He thanks her, and they part.

The movie's thesis is that neither party was especially wrong or especially right. And so the movie ends with that conclusion: Charlie and Nicole can have a relationship outside of their marriage, only as Henry's two imperfect parents.

Why did Nicole want to divorce in Marriage Story? ›

Charlie wants them to stay living in New York, while Nicole wants to live permanently in Los Angeles. Custody over Henry also causes inevitable conflict. Both wanting different things, Nicole and Charlie decide that a divorce is the best thing for their relationship, and decide to keep it civil.

In fact, several real-life divorce attorneys have spoken as to the film's accuracy. One lawyer, in an interview with Slate, confirmed that around a third of her cases are similar to those depicted in the movie—“where the couple starts off wanting to be nice and then everything gets really contentious.”

A stage director and his actor wife struggle through a gruelling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal and creative extremes.

Marriage Story / Film synopsis

The original point of marriage was to create an alliance between families and for economic advancement. Love didn't factor into the equation at all, so the point of marriage wasn't very happy originally. Thankfully, that has changed over time, and the benefits of marriage are now much better than an economic advantage.

The movie's thesis is that neither party was especially wrong or especially right. And so the movie ends with that conclusion: Charlie and Nicole can have a relationship outside of their marriage, only as Henry's two imperfect parents.

Scenes from a Marriage is first and foremost a study of intimacy. Anybody who has been in a long relationship can recognize in it the alternations of tenderness and irritation, of mind-reading rapport and alienated conviction that one is being taken for granted or completely misunderstood.