Summary: In this episode of the Happily Even After podcast, attorney Carl Taylor discusses the film ‘Marriage Story and its reflection on the divorce process. He explores the accuracy of the film in portraying the emotional and legal complexities of divorce, the roles of different types of divorce lawyers, and the impact of divorce on families. Through his insights, Carl provides a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by individuals going through a divorce and the importance of navigating the process with care and strategy.
Podcast Takeaways
- ‘Marriage Story’ accurately reflects the divorce process today.
- Divorce clients often struggle with emotional turmoil.
- The portrayal of divorce lawyers in the film is insightful.
- Preparation for trial is crucial, even if most cases settle.
- Divorce can feel like a death without closure.
- The emotional toll of divorce affects parenting.
- Divorce lawyers often have to balance empathy and strategy.
- Common sense is key, but sometimes a bulldog mentality is needed.
- The legal fees can diminish the assets in a divorce.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Carl Taylor (00:02.222)
Hello and welcome to Happily Even After, the Carl Taylor Law Firm Divorce Podcast. This is Carl Taylor. I’m an attorney in New Jersey, practicing divorce and family law for over 15 years now. This is my little podcast. I wanted to try something a little different today. I wanted to discuss the movie Marriage Story and how it relates to my experiences as a divorce attorney.
This is a film that came out through Netflix a couple of years ago. The headlining stars are Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. There’s also three lawyers that take center stage in the film played by Alan Alda, Ray Liotta and Laura Dern. Kramer versus Kramer came out I think in 1979. It’s got Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. That’s a pretty accurate movie perhaps for the time.
I was born ’83, so I didn’t start practicing law until 2009, but there’s definitely grains of truth in that film. But to me, you know, as a divorce lawyer, Marriage Story is so accurate as to what the divorce process is like today. And even as someone who’s been been married for many years-there’s a lot of truth there. And I think it’s partially because it’s written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who also wrote and directed the Squid and the Whale, which is I suspect kind of autobiographical on childhood experiences going through divorce or somewhat autobiographical. And Marriage Story also seems somewhat autobiographical, if I had to guess, perhaps based upon Noah Baumbach’s own divorce.
Obviously, it’s a work of fiction, et cetera, but there’s just a lot of truth there that seems partially autobiographical and/or he did a lot of great research. You know, it’s really, I think if you want to know what it’s like to be a divorce lawyer in two hours or less, or a taste of what it’s like to go through a divorce, you could watch Marriage Story. Now, obviously if you’re going through a divorce, you know, you have to make sure you’re in a spot where you’re ready to, to see some of the truths that are contained in this film.
Carl Taylor (02:24.204)
And of course it is Hollywood; every divorce is different, but I wanted to go through some of the concepts of the movie and how I feel about them as a divorce lawyer, how they might relate to your own divorce and how I interpreted them within my own practice.
So essentially Adam Driver’s character is going through a divorce from Scarlett Johansson. Accurate to most statistics, she’s the one who files first. She’s an actress and he is a stage director. They’ve been working together for a number of years and have been a couple about the same length of time. They have one child together who’s elementary school aged. She grew up in California and sort of wants to return there and pursue acting on the West Coast. And he being, you know, sort of in the whole New York stage scene, wants to remain in New York where the family had been.
One of my favorite quotes in this film takes place during a pendente lite or pre-divorce motion hearing, and one of the attorneys (played by Ray Liotta) says to the other attorney (played by Laure Dern): “I like how you refer to Charlie’s [Driver] stage production as a ramshackle downtown dump when you’re arguing custody, but when you want more money, he’s a big, rich, genius Broadway director. You can’t have it both ways.” And that’s just so accurate to what it’s like going through a divorce or being a divorce lawyer, right? There’s so many arguments that sort of cut both ways.
You know, if you’re a business owner, I can argue, you know, as a divorce lawyer that that gives you a lot of flexibility in your schedule. And then the other side might argue, no, it’s unreliable because, you know, when you have your own business, you have to work nights and weekends and all these things are true, right? But you’re, you’re spinning to some extent for your client, zealously advocating as you must as a divorce lawyer, to sort of spin the truth in the light most favorable to your client. And there’s a lot of that in this movie.
Carl Taylor (04:27.404)
So there’s three caricature type lawyers in this film. And if you’ve gone through a divorce or if you’re looking for a divorce lawyer, I think there’s something to be said for all three of these. The first is a character played by Laura Dern and she’s a very sophisticated, intelligent divorce lawyer. She’s on top of her game procedurally. She’s got a lot of empathy, at least outwardly, but she’s also ruthless. And in my opinion, seems to manipulate her clients in this film a little bit subtly toward, you know, what might be more labor intensive or expensive or more costly, but also keeping in mind her clients best intentions…at least somewhat. It’s a little bit blurred at the end. It’s kind of clear that she’s out to win and might care more about winning for its own sake than even what her client wants.
So it’s sort of a, as I said, a caricature, but I guess really she’s probably the most well-rounded character of the three lawyers in the film. Obviously extremely competent, very expensive, and could be a bulldog while also coming across to her clients as very empathetic. So there’s a lot of attorneys like that that, as you’ll see if you go through a divorce or if you practice in this realm. So I thought that was a pretty accurate portrayal.
Then you have a character played by Alan Alda, who’s sort of the opposite. He’s the first lawyer that Adam Driver’s character hires. And he used to practice something else besides family law. I think it was entertainment law. And now he’s kind of moved to family law as he’s gotten toward the end of his career. And, you know, he doesn’t have the flashy office. He’s a little more down to earth. His advice is very truthful. But it’s clear throughout that he doesn’t have the litigation chops or the desire at this point in the game to go toe to toe with Laura Dern’s character. And that slowly dawns on Adam Driver’s character.
So, you know, it’s strange because, my whole thing is ‘happily even after.’ And, you know, I saw a lot of myself in the Alan Alda character where it’s like…
Carl Taylor (06:46.414)
Common sense is really key in divorce, right? But if you have the other side not willing to proceed with common sense, then you have to have a little bit more of a bulldog mentality to match them. And Alan Alda’s character doesn’t have that, but everything he says is pretty much true. He says, at one point “when all this is over, the two of you will have to pick up the pieces.”
In other words, at some point the lawyers will not be involved, and of course, lawyers can always get re-involved in cases, post-judgment, motions, et cetera. But there is some truth for most people going through a divorce. They’re going to have to get through it. And then they’re going to have to learn how to co-parent and live separately with someone that they’ve gone through lot of turmoil with. And the uglier the divorce, then maybe the harder it is to pick up those pieces and to co-parent, especially when you have children. But even for little things like complying with chopping up pensions after the fact or selling a house, sort of like the problems that plagued the relationship during the marriage are going to be there after the divorce because you’re never truly 100 % done, especially when there’s children involved, right? So there’s truth in what the Alan Alda lawyer says there. And ultimately, Adam Driver fires the Alan Alda attorney and hires one played by Ray Liotta saying, “I needed my own asshole.”
So, the Ray Liotta lawyer is the third lawyer in this film. I don’t think he comes across as sophisticated with the procedural elements, probably not as intelligent in terms of strategy, but he’s like, he’s the hammer and everything is a nail. He’s the bulldog. And you see that a lot in divorce law marketing or what people say they want in divorce. It’s, you know, the word ‘aggressive’ comes up a lot. You know, as in ‘I’m an aggressive lawyer.’
And that’s why our firm does the whole “we’re dolphins, not sharks” thing. We’re sort of trying to, to carve out, our own philosophy, which is, you know, be smart, be tough, but be smart about it. But Ray Liotta in this film reflects the attorney who, you know, is expensive. We’ll go and fight over everything and maybe we’ll fight, you know,
Carl Taylor (09:06.158)
above and beyond what’s necessary for what’s going to be gained. He might have you spend $20,000 in legal fees to get $10,000, that kind of thing. So, ultimately, what’s interesting, I think, about this film is it shows all these litigation strategies, but the case ultimately settles. And that’s so true about the divorce experience. Only about 2% of all cases actually go to trial in a divorce. The other 98% or so settle. There’s a good reason for that.
It’s very expensive to go through a divorce trial unless there’s a lot of assets at stake. It really makes more sense to try and settle if you can. However, if you don’t prepare for trial as a lawyer or as a client, then you’re not going to be able to settle on favorable terms because it’s all about leverage. And if you actually do go to trial, if you are the 2%, then you’re going to really be up against it, right? Because you’re not going to be prepared. So it’s like you have to go through this process preparing for trial.
Preparing and preparing as though you’re gonna go to trial With the knowledge that probably you won’t and then your your clients are kind of like well Why do we spend all this money preparing for trial? But it’s like you kind of have to…it’s kind of like being prepared for basic training or for war, right? Lot of people who join the military the last, you know few years at least not all of them go and fight in active combat, right or if you join the National Guard You’re not necessarily going to be on active combat.
However, you can’t not train because then if war does occur and you are in active combat, you’re going to be untrained. You’re going be untrained for it, not be prepared for it. So it’s very similar in a divorce. And that sort of creates a difficult scenario because as you’re fighting the, you know, over this pie of the assets and, and mixing, you know, addressing the debt and everything in a marriage, the pie you’re fighting for keeps getting smaller and smaller because there’s legal fees on both sides. And I’m always telling my clients, I’m like, do you want to pay for your kid’s college or my kid’s college? So like, try and be very strategic in what you want to fight over. And sure, maybe, maybe you’re only getting 50% of the pie and you want 60% of it. But if we keep fighting, I might get you 60% of the pie, but the pie is gonna be way smaller. So there’s, there’s that element of it. And of course, if you have, if you had two attorneys like Alan Alda’s character, the case probably would have settled.
Carl Taylor (11:32.034)
in a similar manner for a lot less money, right? But the problem is if you have one Alan Alda and then one Laura Dern or Ray Liotta, it becomes almost impossible because the other side’s going to just walk all over the Alan Alda character. So it’s complex and that’s why you have to take it case by case and you have to look to the people involved too, right? Because ultimately attorneys we’re sort of like fighting a proxy war, right? We’re not actually, it’s not our lives. We have to be somewhat.
Carl Taylor (12:01.934)
divorced for lack of a better term from the process emotionally, right? Like we have to try and say like hey, we’re [the ones] thinking straight here. We’re the ones that are going to try and bring some truth and experience to this process because when you’re going through a divorce, a lot of people find it very difficult to process. So.
There’s key elements in the movie that I thought also kind of rang true. There’s a scene involving a guardian ad litem, which I won’t give away, but it’s sad and hilarious and still realistic. It’s like the more that you get questioned regarding your parenting skills, maybe the harder you try, and then it’s like when you’re trying not to make a mistake, that’s when you do kind of thing. So there’s a great scene there involving a guardian ad litem.
The idea of a guardian ad litem, of course, is sort of like the judge can’t get off the bench and go and see who’s actually the better parent. So they send someone like a, you know, psychologist or somebody with that kind of training or a lot of times a lawyer to go in and observe and write a report. So there’s great, great scenes in the middle of the movie or toward the end of all of the guardian ad litem. There’s a really truthful scene, I think, involving Halloween, where they kind of both agreed to split Halloween. But then there’s disagreement over what costume their son should wear.
And then Adam’s driver character wears like a sort of like a passive-aggressive Halloween costume where he’s the Invisible Man because he wanted to have a sort of Frankenstein pairing with his son and that’s not how it went. So there’s, and then he forces essentially his son to go trick or treating a second time, even though the kids already tuckered out from the first trick or treating with his mother and her family. So there’s a lot of elements there of, I think what the movie’s trying to express is like, even with the best of intentions, you can kind of get petty in a divorce. And next thing you know, maybe you’re not acting in your child’s best interests. And that’s of course something that’s, you… you want to be careful if you’re going through a divorce. And if you’re a divorce lawyer, it’s something you see over and over again. There’s another scene where, you see things sort of get blown out of proportion, like the Scarlett Johansson had a little too much wine one evening and then Ray Liotta’s.
Carl Taylor (14:10.042)
divorce lawyer kind of brings it up to say she’s got alcohol problems, you know that kind of thing. So that sort of thing happens as well in a divorce where you’re under the microscope and little things start to kind of get extrapolated to becoming much larger issues than perhaps they really are There’s also a line that is taken straight from you know every divorce lawyer Where one of the attorneys says divorce or family law is good people at their worst and criminal law is bad people at their best
You know, I say it all the time, like a divorce client, a family law client can be their own worst enemy. And a big part of my job is to try and kind of guide them through the maze of the divorce while trying to keep their integrity, trying to keep their hope alive and trying their best not to allow emotions to overwhelm because you’re not going to find the happily even after if you allow emotions because one thing, any kind of litigation, you’re not done different types of litigation. Lose your temper, lose your case is something I always say. Temper clouds your reason. I think that’s from the Godfather, But it’s true in divorce court too, right? If you’re not thinking rationally, if you have somebody who’s guiding the ship and they’re not being rational, then you’re gonna hit the rocks. There’s elements of parental alienation. It’s not really said, you know, it’s not explicitly stated, there’s some of that sort of in the film as well.
Alan Alda’s character at one point says getting divorced with a kid is one of the hardest things to do. He says “It’s like a death without a body,” which is kind of a grim image, but there’s some truth to that as well. The grieving process doesn’t really… It’s almost impossible to have the grieving process occur because the wound keeps getting reopened, right? It’s not like you put Neosporin on the boo-boo and now it’s…
Carl Taylor (16:08.142)
It’s, you know, the Band Aid now is getting better. It’s like you’re, you’re kind of cutting into it every day because that’s what the divorce process kind of does. And even if you do mediation or arbitration or some of these other collaborative law, you know, there’s still an element where it’s this very human experience that you’re going through. You know, everyone does say going through a divorce is one of the hardest things you can do. It’s like going through the loss of a loved one. It’s like surviving a death of a loved one.
And without really much closure much of the time. There’s also a scene where the attorneys are in the middle of a heated battle during a mediation and then kind of become friendly and talk about what they’re going to order for lunch. And the clients are kind of like, hey, we’re paying these [lawyers] all this money for them to talk about lunch? Or Alan Alda tells a joke and Adam Driver’s character goes, “am I paying you for this joke, Bert?”
So there’s sort of this element of like for a divorce lawyer, this is your job, you know, and I think sometimes it’s hard for clients to realize that like, like it’s your life, but it’s my job and I’m going to fight for you and I’m going to care and put myself on the line. But I have to protect myself too somewhat as a human being because your problems have now become my problems. And I’m now experiencing, you know, you’re going through one divorce, but I’m going through maybe.
you know, dozens of them or throughout my career, hundreds, maybe even, yeah, close to a thousand divorce or family law actions. So it’s, it’s sort of like, yeah, like I, you want me to be a bulldog, fine. But like the truth is most divorce lawyers get along pretty okay once the show’s over, you know, we, tend to be able to separate and compartmentalize because we know that we have a job to do.
But when it’s over, like we, maybe we get lunch with each other or go to bar events and are civil to each other. That’s, it’s hard from the outside looking in to understand why that is. but it’s just the kind of the nature of the job. It’s, it’s, it’s like how baseball players might go at each other in the world series, but then still go play golf with each other or something in the off season or get along during the all star game, you know? I’m trying to think of any other thoughts on this movie.
Carl Taylor (18:36.162)
Yeah, guess, I guess, you know, this film just really touches upon all the key elements. You know, there’s infidelity, the psychological component, the emotional component, experience for the child of going through it, the experience of a mother versus a father and how there’s different, there’s differences there in the divorce, just like there is perhaps in parenting style. And then, you know, there’s the sort of like the.
view of the system where it’s like these are to these two people this is everything but then you see the court the court’s got hundreds of cases and the judge is like all right on to the next one I don’t have all day for your case right that’s kind of accurate as well with the system we have where if you go through a divorce trial you’re to have a hard time getting on the calendar it might take years to go on the calendar you might have a trial today and then not the second day of the trial two months from now because the system is sort of you know it’s it’s inundated with people going through it and
it’s really hard to have the access to the court system. That’s why most cases ultimately settle. So anyway, I’m not trying to open any wounds or reopen any wounds, but I did think that Marriage Story, I watched it for the first time, I guess, during the pandemic and I rewatched it again recently and it almost hits too close to home to enjoy as a film. But I really think if you want to have a distilled idea of what it’s sort of like to go through a divorce if you’re considering a divorce, if you’re going through one. I think that there’s a lot there and it’s really very truthful and raw and also it’s just I think a well-made movie. I think it was nominated for best picture the year it came out by the Oscars. So anyway, wishing everyone a lot of safety and stress reduction out there as you go through this divorce process or consider it. Hope everyone had a great Halloween.
And check out if you have Netflix, the movie Marriage Story. It’s Carl Taylor signing off. My website’s mynjdivorcelawyer.com. Or I can be reached at 609-359-3345.