Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story Is A Powerful Piece of Filmmaking

In many ways, it feels like Noah Baumbach has been working his whole career to get to the point where he could make Marriage Story. Throughout his nearly quarter-of-a-century of making movies, fractured families have been a recurring element across a number of his works. The concept of people you're supposed to be closest to having deep-seated problems with one another is one that Baumbach's explored plenty of times beforehand, but never in as insightful of a manner as he has with Marriage Story. Here, the scope is grander, the characters are richer in detail and the emotional moments really hit you in both the gut and the heart. 1995 Noah Baumbach couldn't have made a movie like Marriage Story that so unflinchingly tackles the complexities of going through with a  divorce. Turns out, waiting for him to be ready as a filmmaker was more than worth the wait.

Medicine for Melancholy Saw Barry Jenkins Hit The Ground Running As An Exceptional Filmmaker

Barry Jenkins is best known today for directing two of the best movies of the 2010s, Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, but those weren't his first two forays into the world of feature film filmmaking. Prior to those two outstanding features, in 2009, he directed a small indie feature entitled Medicine for Melancholy that saw Jenkins channeling his inner Agnes Varda and Richard Linklater in telling a story about two people just spending a day together walking around a city and exchanging dialogue. Watching the film now, it's interesting to see how various parts of Medicine for Melancholy compare to his subsequent directorial efforts, with individual elements of the movie coming off as direct precursors to Jenkins' future directorial work.

If Beale Street Could Talk Is Masterful Emotionally Resonant Filmmaking That Should Not Be Missed

Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne) was only 19. Fonny Hunt was only 22. They were deeply in love in New York City in 1974 and are all set to start a life together, but then tragedy struck in the form of Fonny being arrested for a crime he did not commit. Shortly after he's arrested, Tish learns that she's pregnant with his child, a revelation that she shares with Fonny in one of the opening scenes of the new Barry Jenkins directorial effort If Beale Street Could Talk. From there, the rest of the story, which is based on a 1974 James Baldwin novel of the same name, chronicles Tish and her families attempts to try and free Fonny from his prison sentence as well as numerous flashbacks showing pivotal moments in Tish and Fonny's romance.