The tenth feature from writer-director Noah Baumbach is, he’s admitted, his most personal, inspired at least in part by his divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh in 2010. With such a history, you’d be forgiven for fearing a biased telling of love gone wrong. But in Baumbach’s hands, this unflinchingly granular story of exactly what happens when a marriage ends manages to treat both its parties with fairness and empathy. For as much as it is a story of divorce, it’s about two people who have lost the ability (and often the will) to communicate. Instead, as they negotiate a bi-coastal custody situation — Nicole wants to live in Los Angeles, Charlie in New York — they pay lawyers to take their voices and speak for them. The professionals expertly carve out and remove why they loved each other in the first place, risking their humanity in the process. - Terri White, Empire