We assumed Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” (starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson) would be the most critically acclaimed movie of the fall season and now, after having screened for press at the Venice Film Festival earlier this morning, I think that assumption has all but been confirmed.
Baumbach’s latest has a 97 Metacritic score (based on 9 reviews) and a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 13 reviews). The movie will roll out at the Telluride Film Festival in the coming few days and then TIFF the following weekend. Will the reception be just as rapturous at those fests? I would think so.
As we speak, the two movies gaining the most traction this fall fest season are Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.”
We don’t need to get into why Scorsese’s film (which will world premiere at NYFF in late September) is getting the buzz that it has been getting — after all, it’s a reunion, 25 years in the making between Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. Not to mention the addition of Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel … oh, and the film currently clocks in at 3 hours and 30 minutes in length.
On the other hand, Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” is the only movie this fall season that will be at the four major fall fests (NYFF, TIFF, Telluride and Venice). Baumbach is no stranger to directing critically acclaimed movies. Both “The Squid and the Whale” and “Frances Ha” made hundreds of critics ten best lists in their respective years of release. However, “Marriage Story” is said to be the writer-director’s most mature and personal movie yet as it tackles a divorce between husband and wife (Driver and Johansson) and the child custody that ensues. Baumbach had similar personal issues back in 2010 when he divorced a pregnant Jennifer Jason Leigh and started seeing current partner Greta Gerwig.
“Marriage Story” is set to stream via Netflix on December 6th..