Noah Baumbach’s divorce
comedy has hit Netflix, polarising viewers into those who back Adam Driver’s Charlie and those who support Scarlett Johansson’s Nicole
Much of the debate concerning Noah Baumbach’s latest film has not concerned how good it is: this divorce drama has unified critics and audiences like few others this season. Its debut on the small screen has not come with the disappointment, even anger, that accompanied the
Netflix drop of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman – though that was a film whose length and visuals make it much less suited to the telly.
Rather, the debate has largely been tribal: do you side with Nicole or with Charlie? Or do you take a higher moral ground and contend that such reductiveness is antithetical to the spirit of art and demeans all those who indulge in it?