Review: Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson will break your heart in the masterful 'Marriage Story'

Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) is a director. Nicole Barber (Scarlett Johansson) is an actress. For years they have worked together at the same avant-garde theater company, and for years they have also been husband and wife, with a son, Henry (Azhy Robertson), who is now 8. At home one night in their Brooklyn apartment, Charlie offers Nicole a note on her latest performance, a longtime habit that seems particularly superfluous since she is about to exit the show and their marriage. But he offers it anyway: "At the end, I could tell you were pushing for the emotion."

Like almost everything else in "Marriage Story," Noah Baumbach's scalding, wrenching and inexhaustibly rich new movie, the line serves more than one purpose. It's a power move, a chance for Charlie to take Nicole down a peg in the guise of feedback. It's also an honest insight between creative