Ahead of the 2020 Academy Awards, Vulture is revisiting the endings of this years Best Picture nominees.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Noah Baumbachs characters never quite come to classically dramatic, life-altering resolutions.
Theres something gentle about these endings, and the way they reflect real life.
I dont like when you necessarily know that this is the end of the movie, Baumbach oncetold IndieWireaboutSquid.
I like when a movie ends abruptly.
Marriage Storys ending works that way.
Via vicious attorneys, the couple exchanges barbs and jabs.
He fusses over her ideas about them as a couple like theyre a bad-faith read of a good text.
For an audience of his close friends, hesings Being Alive breathlessly, desperately at an open mic.
)standing at a mic asking for someone to hold him too close, to sit in his chair.
Cut to: a few months later, when hes just arrived in Los Angeles.
He tells Nicole that hes taken a fellowship at UCLA to direct two plays.
Oh, Nicole says, her face colored by surprise.
For the two preceding hours, Charlie has regaled us with his own self-pity from a defensive crouch.
Theres a remarkable stillness to this moment.
Nicole appreciates the effort and doesnt gloat.
Its the assignment from their mediator fromMarriage Storys first scene.
He is energy conscious.
He doesnt look in the mirror too often.
He cries easily in movies.
He is very self-sufficient.
He can darn a sock and cook himself dinner and iron a shirt.
He rarely gets defeated, which I feel like I always do.
The movies thesis is that neither party was especially wrong or especially right.
That reality, knowing each other forever, doesnt seem like such a bad thing after all.
Charlie carries his son to the car, and isnt that what he really wanted most all along?
