A Couples Therapist Analyzes the Marriage in Marriage Story

This article contains spoilers about Marriage Story. In the days since its release, several aspects of Noah Baumbach’s semiautobiographical film (about a marriage between a New York theater director and an actor that crumbles when the director has an affair and the actor moves to Los Angeles to star in a television show, taking their son with her) have become fodder for online discussion: whether the party at fault for the divorce is Charlie (played by Adam Driver) or Nicole (Scarlett Johansson); whether the film is more sympathetic to one spouse than the other; and what kind of message the movie sends about the very institutions of marriage and family. Perhaps one reason viewers hold such fervent opinions is because so many have recognized elements of themselves and their partnerships on-screen—as Ian Kerner, a marriage and sex therapist based in New York, can attest.