How Noah Baumbach’s ‘Marriage Story’ became Netflix’s biggest Oscar hope yet

Noah Baumbach wasn’t quite sure what time zone his body was in. Critics have hailed the picture as the strongest work yet from the indie stalwart, whose 10 previous films include “Kicking and Screaming,” “The Squid and the Whale” and “The Meyerowitz Stories,” and a worthy addition the pantheon of classic divorce movies such as “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Scenes From a Marriage” and “Shoot the Moon.” Oscar prognosticators expect the film to follow the bread-crumb trail of last year’s “Roma” to earn Netflix — which will release it in theaters Nov. 6 and via streaming Dec. 6 — another shot at a coveted best picture Oscar. It’s both such a big subject on its own, and there’s so much that comes out during it that opens up all these other narrative possibilities.” Noah Baumbach wrote and directed “Marriage Story.” For the cast, Baumbach’s screenplay offered the sort of fertile dramatic terrain that actors live for, said Laura Dern, who plays Nicole’s tenacious divorce lawyer. “I remember being 6, 7 years old, watching my mom,, on a movie with Scorsese, my dad,, on a movie with Hal Ashby, listening to the words, watching their collaboration, and going, ‘I want to do that thing.’ I read Noah’s script and said, ‘This is the kind of movie that made us want to make movies.’ ” Though divorce has been a recurring theme in a number of Baumbach’s films — including 2005’s “The Squid and the Whale,” which earned him an original screenplay Oscar nomination — “Marriage Story” actually came out of an impulse to explore the subject of love. “For a long time, I’d been wanting to make a love story but I had no idea how to come at it,” said Baumbach, who is now romantically involved with director and actress Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote and starred in his 2012 film “Frances Ha.” “In looking at a couple breaking up, I sort of found this opportunity to tell a love story in its absence.” While working on the script, Baumbach spoke with friends who’d been through marital breakups as well as divorce attorneys, judges and mediators.