My LAFCA Awards Presentation for Noah Baumbach

On Saturday at the InterContinental in Century City, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association held our 45th annual awards banquet. (Our full list of winners is here.) I was honored to present our Best Screenplay prize to Noah Baumbach for Marriage Story. Here's what I said from the stage:

What happens to love when a relationship ends? Does it wither away and die? Or can it evolve into something else?

Those questions are at the heart of Noah Baumbach’s wonderful, wry screenplay about the complexity and anguish of divorce. Yet his movie is called Marriage Story because, even though the main characters, Charlie and Nicole, are splitting up, they aren’t entirely going their separate ways. Because they have a child, their relationship is simply changing — they’re no longer man and wife, but they have to figure out how to still be a family.

Baumbach has always been a sharp, sometimes caustic writer, but in Marriage Story there’s also an incredible amount of compassion and tenderness — alongside some really terrific jokes about Los Angeles. This film does not take sides in its depiction of Charlie and Nicole — we care about both of them, but understand why they don’t fit together anymore.

If the story has a villain, it’s the divorce-industrial complex itself — the lawyers and legal mechanisms that can tear up lives and turn former soul mates against one another, convincing them that they’re better off alone. It’s a miracle anyone gets through that process in one piece. And so we worry about Charlie and Nicole: Amidst the custody battles and screaming matches, can they somehow hold onto what first bonded them so long ago?

An epic of intimacy, Marriage Story pinpoints the small acts of kindness, the nagging insecurities and failures, the flashes of joy and sorrow that make up a relationship — the things we share with another person, even after they’ve moved on. It’s a film about the end of love — and the echoes of love that still linger. It’s very funny but it’s also very bittersweet. It is a movie about marriage, but it’s also a movie about being alive.

"They'll catch the Sondheim reference at the end," Susan assured me. "Don't worry." She was right. Very happy to have Baumbach and Greta Gerwig at our banquet. She accepted our Career Achievement prize for Elaine May, who was unable to attend.

(Photo by Matt Harbicht.)

Best of 2019: The Top 10 Movies of the Year

How did I spend the 2010s? The question bounced around inside my head this fall after someone on Twitter asked, "there’s only ONE MONTH left in the decade. what have you accomplished?" -- inspiring a viral meme that encouraged users to brag about their personal and professional achievements. (The Twitter user who asked the question, by the way, is currently suspended. Looks like he/she had a more action-packed decade than I did.)

As I thought about how I'd answer that question, I realized ... I didn't have a good response. In fact, the whole premise of the question filled me with anxiety. I got married last decade, and because my wife and I don't have children, I can't list cool things that my kids did. My writing career has thrived, for which I'm eternally grateful, and we now own a place, something I didn't think possible in the ultra-competitive, insanely expensive world of Los Angeles real estate. But somehow, those highlights still felt woefully insignificant in the face of justifying one's existence over the last 10 years. I did things, lots and lots of things, but what had I really done? How had I grown? How had I changed? How had I improved? Was I just marking time on this planet? Or did I make some sort of difference? How did I contribute to the good of society?

These are the sorts of thoughts that can keep you up at night, which is not something I welcome into my life. (Trust me, you don't want to know what's eating away at my brain at two in the morning.) But, seriously, what had I accomplished?

I think the question hits at something I'm constantly struggling with. Accomplishments are not something I really measure my life by. To be sure, I'm always working toward achieving things, but once I get there, I just discard them and move on to the next goal. The accomplishment isn't savored nearly enough because I instantly focus on something new. I measure my life by what's up ahead, not what I've already done. The notion of "Live in the moment" is a wonderful concept that I simply cannot comprehend. How can I live in the moment when there's so much more to do? I value busyness over contentment. (Just the idea of "contentment" actively scares me.)

As we reach the end of a year, and a decade, maybe the thing I accomplished was accumulating a vague understanding that I don't take enough pride in what I've achieved -- and that I'm constantly chasing happiness instead of enjoying the happiness in my life currently. Maybe I should look into that. I feel like I'm not alone in this problem: One of the things I've been struck by while listening to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend is that just about every celebrity he talks to is awful at enjoying things. It's built into their programming to be perpetually slightly unsatisfied. This is how successful people operate, I tell myself. They're always pushing themselves. I'm proud of the part of me that acts that way instinctively. But what fun is it to work hard if you can't sit back every once in a while and allow space to be, you know, proud of yourself? What good is success if you spend every day telling yourself that it isn't enough? I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but maybe I could do better in that regard in 2020, and the 2020s.

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Perhaps you skipped past all that to get to my ranking of the best films of 2019. If so, congratulations, you've now reached my list. Here it is...

1. Uncut Gems
2. Parasite
3. Little Women
4. The Irishman
5. Marriage Story
6. The Lighthouse
7. The Souvenir
8. An Elephant Sitting Still
9. Joker
10. High Life

It was a screwy year in that my feelings about several movies shifted over time. Second screenings of movies revealed some to be better (and some to be less-amazing) than I had initially estimated. Where I ultimately landed was ... well, very much with the consensus. The movies most critics loved charted very high for me, too. Still, there were the annual outliers, specifically Joker, a film whose detractors I am tired of arguing with.

Sometimes, the movies that just miss a critic's Top 10 are more interesting than the ones that make the cut. So, from 11-15, I have Her Smell, Synonyms (pictured above), Ad Astra, Non-Fiction and The Hottest August. Each of them helped make my 2019 richer. (Also, if Leaving Neverland had been eligible for my list, it would have placed pretty high up. Surely one of the year's most memorable screenings was that film's premiere at Sundance. What a grueling, deeply moving experience.)

If a certain personal favorite of yours isn't mentioned above, there's still a good chance I wrote (or talked) about it somewhere. Type the film's title into the search engine at the top left and it should take you straight to my thoughts. I apologize in advance for liking the film less than you did. Nobody's perfect.

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So, how did I spend my 2019? I went to the usual festivals: Sundance, True/False, Cannes and Toronto. And I added a new one, Venice, which was a thrill. (It is very possible I was no happier this entire year than flying down the Lido on a bike. It's an exhilarating way to navigate a festival.)

I wrote a lot, of course. Screen International, as always, kept me wonderfully busy with reviews. (Plus, I got to speak to Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, separately, about The Lighthouse.) MEL continued to give me tons of latitude to dig into lots of different topics. I honored Election's 20th anniversary with one of my favorite pieces this year. (Grateful to Alexander Payne for answering some questions via email.) I really enjoyed wrestling with Fatal Attraction's legacy on the eve of Glenn Close's presumed Oscar triumph. (Spoiler Alert: She did not win.) I went long on Deliverance's infamous rape scene and its echoes in our culture, arguing that we have yet to truly confront what that movie unleashed. (We're still making "squeal like a pig" jokes, afraid to acknowledge the fact that men can be sexually assaulted.) I had a playful tussle with Werner Herzog. We have a lot of fun over at MEL.

Rolling Stone allowed me to lament Universal's decision to pull The Hunt. (Remember that controversy?) My favorite piece for them, though, was my essay imagining what it would mean if Green Book won Best Picture. (That could never happen, we told ourselves ... but what if?) I was grateful to Paste that I got to write about Martin Scorsese's other 2019 movie, Rolling Thunder Revue. (And I did my usual massive True/False recap for them as well.)

Guess who got to interview Alan Alda for the Los Angeles Times? That would be me. (What an honor.) Separately, I got to spend some time with Knives Out's Ana de Armas, who couldn't have been sweeter or sharper.

What else? I wrote a year-end essay for Filmmaker, which is available only to subscribers. (Seriously, look at the cover to my issue.) SyFy has been a delightful home for me and Will to write about movies on a weekly basis. Will and I do a lot of cool lists for Vulture, but our highlight moment was interviewing Don Hertzfeldt, whose It's Such a Beautiful Day made both of our lists of the best films of the decade. (Speaking of which, have you heard that episode of the Grierson & Leitch podcast? It's a good one. Actually, I'm awfully proud of every episode we do.) I spent some time with 6 Underground's Ben Hardy for The Face. (We went to In-N-Out Burger.) I revisited "Nookie" for Revolver. (Sorry, Significant Other still slays.) For Los Angeleno, I surveyed my fair city's wide-ranging midnight-movie scene. I was on the jury for the Gotham Awards. And at the very end of the year, I did an exhaustive history of the Millennium Falcon for Popular Mechanics. Good lord, I was busy.

Thanks for reading. I wish you all a happy 2020. I am actively dreading the presidential election. "Trump's going to win again," someone close to me said recently with bitter resignation. We'll see.

What's Scarlett Johansson's Best Performance?

Will and I look back at the actor's career over at Vulture.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: 'Marriage Story,' 'Beautiful Day,' '21 Bridges' and 'Frozen II'

Will and I both review Marriage Story and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood on this week's podcast. Then I go solo on 21 Bridges and Frozen II. Also, our big Best of the Decade episode is coming soon. (Gulp.) Hear the whole show down below.

My Interview With Alan Alda

Well, this was a treat. For the Los Angeles Times, I spent about an hour talking to Alan Alda, who's terrific in Marriage Story. We chatted about life, love, near-death experiences and Parkinson's. I had a wonderful time. My profile is here.

Some Thoughts on 'Marriage Story'

For MEL, I wrote about the very good Marriage Story, which examines how the institution of divorce is designed to make people fall out of love with one another. Hope you enjoy.