(My take: They’re good! Him especially.) But the other, more significant reason this scene has whipped the internet into a frenzy is because Marriage Story’s release came at the close of another year - another decade - in which mainstream American culture has attempted to wrestle with the dilemma of (white, middle class) heterosexuality and the question of whether it might be an ultimately doomed project.Īll the jokes about Marriage Story painting a portrait of heterosexual implosion struck me as perfect examples of what Indiana Seresin, writing for the New Inquiry in October, called “ heteropessimism,” which she defines as “performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality, usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness about straight experience.” Heteropessimism “generally has a heavy focus on men as the root of the problem,” and its performances “are rarely accompanied by the actual abandonment of heterosexuality.” While some people do act - “choosing celibacy or the now largely outmoded option of political lesbianism” - most of them just lament the prison of straightness without attempting to either break free from or transform it.
Part of the reason that the clip went viral - before evolving into an all-purpose meme - was that people felt the need to weigh in on whether Driver and Johansson’s acting is actually any good. After trying to deal with their separation amicably for most of the film, tensions boil over and both spouses end up screaming at each other.
She wants to start over in her hometown of Los Angeles after a decadelong stint in New York as an actor in Charlie’s company, helping him make his dreams come true the problem is that Charlie doesn’t want their son, Henry (Azhy Robertson) to live full-time with her across the country. Charlie (Adam Driver), a charismatic but demanding theater director, is having it out with his soon-to-be ex-wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson).
Before most people had had the chance to sit down and actually watch Noah Baumbach’s new movie Marriage Story on Netflix, a pivotal fight scene late in the film made the rounds on Twitter.