Marriage Story - 6 nominations

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Noah Baumbach, David Heyman

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Scarlett Johansson

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Adam Driver

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Laura Dern

Best Original Screenplay - Noah Baumbach

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) - Randy Newman

Marriage Story could just as easily be called "Divorce Story," except that it couldn't.  Let me explain.  At first glance, the film is about a couple who have come to the end of their marriage, but don't hate each other.  They want to act like grown ups and people who care about each other and their son, and they walk the tightrope between being true to that goal, and listening to their lawyers who have seen the worst in people and don't trust anybody.  These family lawyers are sharks, and they want their clients to behave as though the other is working clandestinely to screw their former spouses.  There are so many moments in the film that are powerfully  resonant, whether you have been through a divorce or not.  Small slights, annoyances, and aggressions that undermine each individual's call to his or her better nature, and each person's trust that the other will continue to be committed to their common goal to be decent through the worst of the separation.  These are behaviors that both spouses recognize as insidious as they do them!

Marriage Story hurts.  There is no good guy, there is no bad guy.  How frustrating to observe the deterioration of a marriage without severe animosity.  How hard not to have a protagonist nor an antagonist.  There is no one to root for and no one to root against.  That's a ballsy film.

Every actor in this film is wonderful, particularly Alan Alda who was not nominated.  Laura Dern is likely a lock for the win.  If I'm being honest, I would have happily taken Adam Driver out of the Best Actor competition in favor of Eddie Murphy for Dolemite is My Name, or Taryn Edgerton in Rocketman.  But Driver is on a sharp rise in Hollywood and his talents are clear.

I would be remiss for my fellow Oscars nerds if I failed to acknowledge that this is Randy Newman's 22nd Oscars nomination (he's won twice).  Newman is brilliant at creating songs and scores for film, and this score is no exception.  Though I don't believe that he will capture this one, I can say that his work is worthy of the top 5.

For a good juxtaposition of a divorce movie where there is a clear good guy and bad guy (sort of), you can watch Kramer vs Kramer, the Best Picture winner for 1979.  It won 5 Oscars, and I think was the first of the modern divorce tales in the Oscars mix.

Watch the trailer here:

WILD - 2 nominations

Actress in a Leading Role - Reese Witherspoon
Actress in a Supporting Role - Laura Dern

Wild is the story of a woman absorbed in grief over the loss of her mother who becomes seriously self destructive and makes dangerous choice after dangerous choice.  Sexual promiscuity and drug abuse become central to her life story, until she decides that she must go on a journey of over 1000 miles hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.  She is relatively unprepared and sincerely unqualified to make this journey - especially alone - and through a series of very lucky coincidences and support from fellow hikers, she not only survives the journey but finds herself.

There is a strange tension in the film wherein she often seems on the verge of being raped that makes it hard to focus on the storyline.  That aside though, the movie was very compelling, and it almost feels like we are partnering with her on her journey.

Laura Dern is the real standout in this film.  It is interesting to juxtapose that it was only last year that Dern's father was nominated for an outstanding performance in Nebraska which he did not win, and that Dern is nominated for an outstanding performance for Wild, which she will likely not win.  In both cases, the recognition is absolutely deserved.

Reese Witherspoon was very good, as she always is, and I suspect that any really good actress like her would be nominated for this role because of how grueling it appears to be to pull off.  I'm a fan of Witherspoon's, and I generally think she picks good projects.  In this case, she truly selected this one, having optioned the book before it was even published.

Overall,  a really good solid film.