Marriage Story and the Absurdity of Modern Life

Noah Baumbach’s film sheds searing light on the viciousness and silliness of modern love and of the myths we tell ourselves about it.

As I was watching Marriage Story, it kept occurring to me how easily the film glides between its different registers: family melodrama, screwball comedy, slice-of-life. There were moments that were clearly intended to be uproariously funny (and not in that uncomfortable way that some comedies have adopted of late), and there were…