Marriage Story Grapples With Selfishness, Which Is A Bad Look For Charlie

Marriage Story is the newest Netflix original production to sweep the film world and stir up awards whispers. The story is one of divorce, which is a familiar story, one that many have seen play out in real life—either through their own marriage or a friend’s marriage or their parents. It is one of those things—if you haven’t experienced it, you know someone who has. And while this probably doesn’t look exactly the same (it is a bi-coastal divorce of two exceptional and successful artists) there is one thing that rings true no matter the relationship: someone always gives up a little more of themselves for the other.

Adam Driver gives a strong performance as Charlie, the husband in the relationship. Charlie is a selfish man who has taken his family’s (specifically his wife Nicole’s) compliance with his life choices for granted. The film wears his selfishness on its sleeve—we learn that he took Nicole, played wonderfully by Scarlett Johansson, to New York from her home and family in Los Angeles to star in his Avant-Garde theater productions instead of movies that she had been doing. In many ways, he has a white knight complex that rears its head as he acts like he tried to save her from her own career (which he deems as “hacky”). It is not a career he would want so she should not either. Yet this action is still part of his overwhelming selfishness as he uses her talent for his own productions and never gives her a chance to shine without standing at least partially in the spotlight himself. She may have been his muse once, as he implies in his opening letter, but by the time the movie opens, that has long passed. Nicole is the leftovers of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl; she is what happens when a partner used as a tool for personal growth is drained of everything that they once were.

Early in the film, Nicole decides to get a lawyer. This surprises Charlie because they had agreed to do this without counselors since that could get ugly. This decision should not come as a surprise for the those watching, however, as we see Nicole realize that whenever she and Charlie “agree on” and “discuss” things he ends up with the final and she loses out—every, single, time. He never considered her family and love for LA, he never considered her taking projects outside of their theater troop, he never considered her. With legal counsel, she feels like she is taking power back and giving herself a chance to come out of this divorce with something for herself. No one should fault her for that. This is the moment where things get real, though, and everything that she was holding in and everything he has to answer for comes to the surface.

Charlie’s selfishness is not played for villainy though. Rather, it is the most human part of the movie. Audiences can understand his drive and his frustration with being flown across the country back and forth and his need to get a lawyer. This is important, because it forces Charlie to reconcile with the actions that he has taken in the past as he loses his wife, and even more importantly his son, in the present. There is no doubt that while Nicole is soul searching and discovering herself, this is Charlie’s story, and it is Charlie’s devolution that viewers see. He is forced to change himself, to leave New York, if he wants to see his son. He will never have Nicole’s love again. And that is the best message to take from this movie—know what you have before it is gone. There is so much good in this film, and some elements (like Laura Dern’s outstanding performance of a terribly written character) that leave more to be desired. Overall, though, Marriage Story is a story that we have all seen before and a story that we will all see again. Sometimes, often even, things don’t work out. Good people are drained by selfish, narcissistic people, and sometimes the selfish people learn too late.