Tolstoy’s line—“All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”—could be an epigraph for a lot of these movies. Smashed marriages, unparented children, thwarted potential: these are the rudiments. But Baumbach himself inhabits a cheerier landscape these days. He is the father of three sons—two little boys with his wife and collaborator, Greta Gerwig, and a teen-ager from his marriage to Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is showing an interest in filmmaking. The pitch-dark squirm comedy of movies like “Greenberg” and “Margot at the Wedding,” which almost anticipated what we now call cringe, has mutated into something more effervescent, even vaguely screwball, without losing any of the director’s way with sadness. The influence of Gerwig, who has starred in and co-written movies with Baumbach, including the pink-powered blockbuster “Barbie,” which she directed, is evident in all of this. Our conversations over the years, which have been edited and condensed, touch on Baumbach’s deliberately messy storehouse of themes: everyday family dysfunction, tolerance for discomfort, surprising moments of grace, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter