This year’s New York Film Festival has already done an incredible job of standing out among the wealth of fall events thanks to the announcement yesterday that Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” will have its world premiere on the festival’s opening night. And now, NYFF has announced its Centerpiece selection, and it’s another premiere that film fans are likely going to be excited about.
Today, NYFF announced that Noah Baumbach’s highly-anticipated “Marriage Story” will be making its NY premiere at the prestigious event on October 4. As the name implies, Baumbach’s film tells the story of a married couple that is going through a bitter divorce with custody of their child hanging in the balance.
“What amazed me about ‘Marriage Story’ is the way that Noah keeps the many conflicting emotions between his characters flowing into and around and under and over each other, so beautifully that the film achieves the condition of music,” said New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones. “In fact, it actually flowers into song in two of the film’s loveliest and most surprising moments. ‘Marriage Story’ is a heartbreaker, it’s very funny, and it has an emotional complexity that’s worthy of Bergman.”
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It’s interesting that Jones mentions filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. In a previous interview, Baumbach has likened his approach to “Marriage Story” to the way Bergman created “Persona.”
“I grew up coming to the New York Film Festival with my parents. And it’s where my first film ‘Kicking and Screaming’ premiered 24 years ago,” said Baumbach. “I couldn’t be more thrilled and proud that ‘Marriage Story’ has been selected as Centerpiece of the NYFF. The 14-year-old me’s mind is blown; the 49-year-old me’s mind is also blown.”
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“Marriage Story” stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. It’s the first film from Baumbach since “The Meyerowitz Stories” and sees the filmmaker once again team up with Netflix as the distributor.
The New York Film Festival begins on September 27 and runs until October 13.