Marriage Story Review: Reckoning with Bitch Media’s Take

There is no #metoo moment in Marriage Story.

The title of Bitch Media’s review of Marriage Story is meant to cause a reaction. And, I’ll admit, I was ready to jump in and find all that was wrong with the “bitching” argument, but I couldn’t find the “Misogyny” or the #metoo angle the article appeared to be dangling in front of its readers.

What’s The Message of Marriage Story?

I watched Marriage Story after my mom kept telling me what a great movie it was. She was convinced it was “all the lawyers” that messed it all up. And to a point, she’s right. It seems, at the beginning of the movie that our two fractured parents are interested in a fair divorce, a divorce that does not hurt the other parent, and a divorce that would be “in the best interest” of their young son. That’s not how the narrative goes.

As the divorcing parents navigate the process of divorce, the business of splitting their baby, so to speak, the mom moves “home” to Los Angeles to star in a TV pilot. Dad is forced to respond to her Californian divorce attorney, played to wicked effect by Laura Dern (fresh off her Big Little Lies role), and the aggressive divorce case she builds with the mom, played by Scarlett Johanssen. She wants to go for blood. And at first, the mom is hesitant…