“Baumbach’s Marriage Story Mines Both Truth And Excess”

Over years I’ve sort of come to terms with the reality that Noah Baumbach movies, for the most part, don’t jibe with me; I think his ticks and quirks all tie back to a life spent bathed in privilege and sealed in a very specific world that over time has left him somewhat disconnected from his fellow man. So it goes*.

This is especially apparent for me in his latest, the super-duper loved Marriage Story, a movie full of tiny excesses that add up to an excess of excesses. They build. They weigh the movie down. They make it, frankly, kind of obvious in ways that betray what Baumbach is trying to do here.

I appreciate the level of craft that went into this thing, and the level of personal sentiment that went into it, too, but I don’t know, I really can’t abide the volume of precious writing that went into this thing.

You can read my full review over at Paste Magazine.

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*I do like Frances Ha quite a bit, though at all times it too assertively apes French New Wave cinema, and, come on, get outta here with that.