Marriage Story

From director Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha) comes Marriage Story, an somewhat ironically titled film considering it follows the dissolution thereof through divorce proceedings.

“Lucky Trumble” by Nancy Wilson, originally released as part of 2000’s Almost Famous soundtrack, arrives anew in this trailer and covers the first twenty-seven seconds as our two protagonists recount what they admired about each other, up until a gentle breaking point when they both note simultaneously that the other is “very competitive.”

The next segment is a fairly generic, uplifting track, maybe reflecting the last vestiges of hope as the wife’s friends bring up the idea of “unserving” the notice of divorce, and the continued positive relationship the husband has with his mother in law (to the consternation of his soon-to-be ex).

This sense of hope is broken, however, and leading this change is Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” (1970; at the outset of his Wings period) at the 0:52 mark. McCartney’s passionate vocals serve as an emotional backdrop for some key moments of dialogue as she stipulates that “I was just feeding his aliveness,” and he intones that he’ll “never get to really be his parent again”—note that the lyrics at this juncture are “maybe I’m a lonely man who’s in the middle of something that he doesn’t really understand”—another somewhat subtle underlining of the underlying emotional chaos serving as the film’s through-thread.

After the ensemble cast is announced with a title card where each line is synced to a beat of the drum in a simple but effective roll call. McCartney is given full spotlight, singing “maybe you’re the only woman who could ever help me,” practically screaming the lyric. It takes on a new resonance given the emotional foil of the film’s plot, and it serves as an effective musical counterpoint to the wife laying in bed with her kids, looking completely distraught. This marriage of song and trailer, if you will, continues as the guitar solo for the tune plays the trailer out, giving it a little more status then just one of multiple songs used to track it.

“Maybe I’m Amazed” was originally written by McCartney as a tribute to his wife—circumstantially, it’s hard not to disentangle that from the new and directly opposing situation that this song is backing in this trailer. As some of the expository dialogue hints, maybe there is something to learn as the couple navigates the seeming contradiction of an amicable separation—that there is a different kind of love that prevails, for the sake of family and life going on, whether or not they actually follow through with the divorce.

— Curtis Perry