When a marriage falls apart, does it have to be a horror movie? Not in Noah Baumbach's hands. Baumbach weaves his dark comedy with tragic romance, following a New York playwright (Adam Driver) and actress (Scarlett Johansson) as they dissolve their once-happy union with aid from some seen-it-all lawyers (Laura Dern, Ray Liotta and Alan Alda) and concerned family (Julie Hagerty, Merritt Wever). As in his character-driven films like The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha, Baumbach brings his gift for precise observation of human behavior to this bicoastal, artistic couple untangling their lives from one another while raising their son. But there's a new warmth and reflectiveness in the way the writer-director treats this highly personal material, with subtle performances by Driver and Johansson, who deliver moments of bewilderment, tenderness, loss and one bravura fight.

D: Noah Baumbach, US, 2019