‘Marriage Story’: Read Noah Baumbach’s Screenplay For Netflix’s Awards-Season Drama

Patrick Hipes

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EXCLUSIVE: Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story has been collecting awards-season honors all fall since its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. That’s especially true for his original screenplay, which won the category at the Gotham Awards, is nominated for a Golden Globe (where the pic leads all films with five noms), and was named the screenplay of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Baumbach listened to stories from friends and interviewed lawyers, judges and mediators to tap into the world of divorce that confronts Scarlett Johansson’s Nicole and Adam Driver’s Charlie. He wrote the script in fact with those two actors specifically in mind, tailoring to each and working with them to draw on their own experiences.

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One highlight in the movie that has received among the biggest responses comes with the monologue written for Laura Dern’s fiery divorce attorney Nora Fanshaw, which she told the audience at Deadline’s recent The Contenders New York “was the greatest Christmas present I have ever gotten.” Of the speech, about the double standards for mothers and fathers, “I said, ‘Can I add one little thought on the end?’ ” Dern said. “Which is, ‘God didn’t even do the f*cking’ — because he didn’t.”

She called the film “oddly hopeful.” Love stories don’t die, she added, “they just take another form.”

Marriage Story hit big screens on November 6 and become available on Netflix on December 6.

Read the full screenplay here.

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