Why 'History of a marriage' is the most heartbreaking film of the year (and one of the best)

'History of a marriage' begins with the words that their characters never said, with two texts full of a love now stained by time, the grudges and the emptiness of a relationship that agonizes.A insuffle of romanticism in the first minutes of Noah Baumbach movie that ends a blow, without mercy, when we realize that the two protagonists only speak to their parties, which are memories that do not want to remember aloud forDo not crack the impenetrable walls that they have already built between them and that leads them to divorce.They are in a couple therapy session, where separation is already physical (each on a tip of the couch) and emotional, and where it is clear, without many more explanations, that the story we will see from now on (full of heartbreaking monologues, awkward silences and explosions of rage) deals with the inability to communicate when harmony has broken.When love ends and only reproaches remain.

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Baumbach has been looking for the meaning of being an adult on the big screen for 25 years.He went from talking about disorientation when leaving the university ('Kicking and Screaming') to the discovery period when he is twenty -yeara past not so far from promising youth and present emotional and professional stability ('while we are young').Characters, such as Ben Stiller in ‘Greenberg’ or Nicole Kidman in ‘Margot and the wedding’, who have not yet found their place as adults in the world.But the perfect parallel with his new film is found in 'A history of Brooklyn', which reflected the divorce of his parents, told through the eyes of a child, and now moved to the eyes of the true protagonists, withan amazing maturity.Now it is another divorce, to which the fantastic interpretations of Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, who inspires a story of relationships in decline: his own: his own: his own: his own: his own.

Spiritual heiress of 'Kramer against Kramer' (1979), 'History of a marriage' rises as one of the best films of the year, confirming the good cinephile harvest of Netflix in the same month that Martin's Irish 'Scorsese.Now we talk about Baumbach, the experiences that have inspired their new work, how gender roles take sides in the relationship between their protagonists and how the rivalry between New York and Los Angeles arrives at their zenith as the scene of their personal hell.

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Based on real (and realistic) facts

Reality and fiction are always closer than we think.In 'History of a marriage', it seems clear that Baumbach has taken a certain inspiration from his private life: the filmmaker was married to actress Jennifer Jason Leigh (recently seen in 'Ani -annihilation' and the hateful eight ') for five years, butIn 2013 they decided to break their marriage.There are various similarities between both stories: she is an actress with a family linked to the industry, there is a child in between (although in reality it was just a newborn, unlike in the film) and also, as an aspect perhaps more controversial,a possible infidelity never publicly recognized, but explicit in fiction.Charlie (Driver) is seen deceiving Nicole (Johansson) with one of her companions of the theater company, while Baumbach took a year to start a relationship with an actress with whom she had been working on her films since 2009 and which is her currentCouple: Greta Gerwig, director of the next 'little women'.Even so, both have insisted, there was no infidelity during the marriage, but the relationship arose later.

But beyond these details that connect the real facts with the reality of fiction, the feelings that both felt on that break is the breeding ground for the greatness of this film.And it is going to cost many spectators and spectators not to recognize themselves in each discussion weighed with pride, every hurtful word of which they immediately regret, every look at the phone waiting for it to sound, the devastating feeling of loneliness when a life of coexistenceIt becomes an independent life, whether or not there are children in between...What makes ‘history of a marriage’ ’into the most heartbreaking film of the year is precisely that: the unmistakable universality of its history.Broken heart is a common disease.

Wilson Webb

The evolution of 'Kramer against Kramer'

The comparisons are hateful, but those that have been made between 'history of a marriage' and 'Kramer against Kramer' are justified: a marriage that makes waters, a small child in the middle of the rupture, a woman determined to take the reinsof his life and a man who must understand why everything has happened.It would seem that Noah Baumbach's movie is almost a remake of Robert Benton's, but it's really an evolution.A spiritual sequel to the 21st century.And it is that in its differences, and not in its similarities, it is where we find the true essence of history.

To find them, it is interesting to review the column that Jourdain Searles wrote for The New York Times following the premiere of the Netflix film, and in which he claimed that he was much less progressive than his predecessor.The journalist argues that Charlie "never apologizes for her bad behavior", while history puts us more than her part than Nicole's, one of many women with a demonization bias for wanting to leave a marriage.This is stated by Searles, which points to a trend (among which identifies ‘it rains on my heart’ by Francis Ford Coppola or ‘Manhattan’ of Woody Allen) in which the directors “have trouble humanizing” the wives.“It is discouraging to see these topics over and over again without the filmmakers reflecting on the treatment they give to their spouses, and that is part of what makes 'Kramer against Kramer' last so many years later: imagine a male character who learnsto grow and recognize the role he played in the dissolution of his marriage, ”he writes.

On the trend of Christian tradition to blame mothers and wives of marital problems, there are sufficient examples to demonstrate it (at least, in the past).On Charlie's learning in 'History of a marriage', critic Owen Gleiberman responded in Variety: “I would say that it is implicit in the film that the revolution of the male roles represented by the 70's film is one of which Charlie hasEmerged: He is a committed and affectionate father, he knows how to take care of his son and be more than the family's support, a trip that Ted Kramer did have to do in his film ”.Gleiberman argues so it is not that it is less progressive, but that it focuses on other "more superficial" issues about the breakdown of a couple.

The visions of both journalists are equally valid, but what is clear is that in the comparison between the two films cited there is a time space of almost 40 years and a different narrative perspective: Baumbach is not here to judge its protagonists, fortake sides or stand on one or the other.Nor is he self -indulgent with his male character, luck of alter ego of himself.There are no obvious moral and gender lessons such as in Benton's film, but a story told from the bowels, with a lucid visual commitment and the certainty that, in matters of the heart, there are no white and black, or good and bad, nor perfect learning stories.

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