WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES
EITHER OF THEM WANTED IT TO TURN OUT LIKE THIS. I refer, of course, to the divorce that (title notwithstanding) is the heart of the story in . Noah Baumbach’s latest film opens with a feint: a voiceover going through the qualities and quirks of Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), married to Charlie (Adam Driver), seen through the gaze of what could only be an adoring husband—until the montage is revealed to be a kind of flashback and not a reflection of the present. The swerve—goodbye, not hello—expresses the shifting of ground beneath their feet that is their breakup, the sense that something unthinkable has happened… except for all the ways in
