Mini-Reviews: Marriage Story and Parasite

Mini-Reviews: Marriage Story and Parasite

With the Oscars coming up next weekend, I've decided to do something a little different with my final reviews for 2019 films.  Nearly every review I've written in the ten years I've been doing this blog has been based on a film I saw in the theater.  I don't remember why I started that way, but if anything I feel only more strongly about this "rule".  To me, a film should ideally be seen in a theater.  It allows you to be fully absorbed in the experience: a dark room, with just that big screen in front of you.  Some may find that their local theater tends to have distracting co-viewers (talking, using phones - argh!!!); luckily, with some rare exceptions, I don't have to put up with this.  On the other hand, a communal theater experience can enhance the film in unique ways - comedies especially benefit, as do certain others like the opening night of a long-awaited event (see: Avengers: Endgame).

However, I'm breaking my rule today.  Both Marriage Story and Parasite have multiple Oscar nominations - most importantly, both are up for Best Picture.  Both also had limited theater runs; between the two, I think Parasite may have been available to me for a single week (I decided, maybe unwisely, to see something else that week).  I've now seen both via streaming, so I thought I'd do shorter reviews for each.  So here are my last two films for 2019, and keep an eye out for my annual film-in-review and Oscar-like awards posts next week!

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Marriage Story
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda
Running time: 136 minutes
Rated R

Marriage Story is a searing and insightful examination of the end of a marriage, with some very potent acting performances.  Despite the overall premise, it's actually not a dark or grim film.  In fact, the director wisely chooses to start the film with each character listing their spouse's good qualities, part of a counseling exercise that sees them trying to resolve things amicably in spite of their mutual frustration.  The situation degenerates, of course, to increase the tension and drama.  Johansson and Driver are magnificent at showing the natural, gradual evolution of the relationship at this final hour.  Each gets to showcase how they are processing it as individuals - Johansson rehashing her entire story to a lawyer, Driver struggling through a parent evaluation - in impressive, extended sequences.  But they're even better when together, ranging from quietly showing the final, worn out embers of their connection, to a confrontation whose physical intensity is surpassed by the agonizing - yet cathartic - words themselves.  Dern's smooth and protective lawyer, and Alda's sweet yet helpless one are both great, too.  Despite the mutual wounds, the ending finds a quiet grace, however.  Spoiler alert: they don't get back together.  But just as it showed a natural escalation of emotions and grievances earlier, Marriage Story also shows the quiet healing power of time.  Excellent.

Score:  A

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Parasite
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Starring Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Song Kang-ho, Cho Yeo-jeong

Parasite is an inventive film, well-crafted and performed, but I was disappointed by some creative and narrative choices, leaving it short of its potential.  This is a Korean film, and as such has sub-titles (like last year's Mexican Roma); I'm personally fine with this, though I do feel some elements of a film are inevitably lost in, well, translation.  Wikipedia describes it as a "dark comedy thriller", which seems odd but is pretty accurate; moreso, it starts as one type of film and then turns suddenly into another.  Parasite's protagonists are a poor family, the Kims, teenaged son and daughter and their parents.  Daily life searching for wifi signals and chasing away public, er, relievers, the first part is hilarious if uncomfortably so.  The children soon find an opportunity to turn their family's fortunes, however, and show themselves quite clever and resourceful; meanwhile a new, wealthy family comes along, the Parks, who are amusingly naive to ordinary life.  All seems to be going well, yet one dark and stormy night, things unravel rapidly upon the ring of a door bell.  The transition itself is done quite well, totally unexpected and creepy, yet somehow also uproarious in its own way.  Unfortunately, the film, for me, declines after this pivotal part.  Think along the lines of Get Out, but the trick is not an appropriate fit here.  Parasite does great work setting up some interesting social commentary over its first half, but in choosing to adopt more extreme, fantastical symbolism later, I found the themes to blur in favor of style.  Still, certainly a thought-provoking film worth a try.

Score:  B+




* By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61570092
** By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62809787