Margot at the Wedding (B or 3/4 stars)
'Margot at the Wedding' is a dark comedy written & directed by Noah Baumbach. Margot (Nicole Kidman) & her son, Claude (Zane Pais) decide to visit her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the week she is getting married to a stout, unimpressive man named Malcolm (Jack Black). Margot hasn't spoken to her sister in a while, so her intentions at the wedding are suspect. Sure enough, while they initially share some fond memories, a shit-storm of family secrets & lies surfaces. And Pauline's wedding hangs in the balance. This movie is more like a collection of consecutive scenes, rather than a cohesive whole. But they are good scenes. Kidman & JJ Leigh act with a cold passion. The dialogue is biting. So, though the film is fairly inconsequential, I quite enjoyed this miserable family.
Margot is an intelligent woman, a writer, & a loving mother. That's not necessarily a good thing, though. That intelligence is often used to bring people down; using razor-sharp wit, irony, sarcasm, & downright cynicism. She writes her books, not because she loves to, but because she feels it's her right as an intelligent person. And her love of her son (with NO sexual undertones whatsoever), is still fairly incestuous; she treats him like a sturdy best girlfriend. And at such a young, unknowing age, he reacts accordingly. In short, Margot creates chaos everywhere she goes. So when she arrives at her free-spirited sister's doorstep, you know something catastrophic could happen. 1st & foremost, she disdainfully looks down on Malcolm. He's out-of-shape, slovenly, introspective, & unemployed.
She honestly thinks her opinion is Truth. Not only that, she assumes (like everything else in life) that Pauline will agree & re-think the avenues of her life. From here, the boulder is firmly rolling down the mountain. One complication after another enters the picture: 1) Margot innocently (she thinks) pokes fun & takes jabs at everyone, mostly Pauline. 2) Some vengeful neighbors want a tree cut-down in Pauline's backyard (before the wedding ceremony); Margot complicates this scenario further. 3) The possible separation of Margot from her husband (John Turturro) is another unwanted disruption during the week. 4) Margot insinuates that Malcolm is cheating on their hired babysitter (for Pauline's first child). 5) Margot is having an affair with another neighbor (good 'ole Ciaran Hinds); this creates a huge dilemma (in what can be called the climax of the film). Margot instigates a myriad of other issues which pop-up throughout; all culminating in family crisis.
Pauline & Malcolm love each other, but will Margot have succeeded in tearing apart this union? From frame one, til the end, there is tension ... and then explosion. 'Prickly' is a word I'd use to define this family. You see, Margot has some severe personality disorders (she's sort of aware of them, but probably knows 'deep' inside that the ripple effects are more harmful to others than to her). She can't harness them; and she knows it (which makes it worse for someone of this nature). Though the last scene of the film is kind of out of nowhere; it exactly fits Margot's cycle of problems; I even saw it coming. After leaving the theater, I realized that the title of the film is just that. We know nothing of what happens/ed before or after the 'wedding' ... but we can sure take some wild guesses.
Kidman is great as our neurotic Margot. Jennifer Jason Leigh is just as impressive as the vulnerable, rough-around-the-edges sister who's trying to find happiness. There's always something about Leigh's delivery of lines (and her body language) that I find very familiar, comfortable, natural, and real. Overall, I found a majority of the scenes to be enjoyably vicious, snarky, quirky, & honest. The film captures the little, inane absurdities in families (especially btwn. siblings); the little things that gnaw at each other. I'm not overly enthusiastic about the movie as a whole. But there's a guilty pleasure in watching family trauma unfold. And I get a kick out of witnessing this 'type' of self-absorbed people onscreen that I kinda/sorta know. Haha, I'm neither proud nor shameful of that.
Margot is an intelligent woman, a writer, & a loving mother. That's not necessarily a good thing, though. That intelligence is often used to bring people down; using razor-sharp wit, irony, sarcasm, & downright cynicism. She writes her books, not because she loves to, but because she feels it's her right as an intelligent person. And her love of her son (with NO sexual undertones whatsoever), is still fairly incestuous; she treats him like a sturdy best girlfriend. And at such a young, unknowing age, he reacts accordingly. In short, Margot creates chaos everywhere she goes. So when she arrives at her free-spirited sister's doorstep, you know something catastrophic could happen. 1st & foremost, she disdainfully looks down on Malcolm. He's out-of-shape, slovenly, introspective, & unemployed.
She honestly thinks her opinion is Truth. Not only that, she assumes (like everything else in life) that Pauline will agree & re-think the avenues of her life. From here, the boulder is firmly rolling down the mountain. One complication after another enters the picture: 1) Margot innocently (she thinks) pokes fun & takes jabs at everyone, mostly Pauline. 2) Some vengeful neighbors want a tree cut-down in Pauline's backyard (before the wedding ceremony); Margot complicates this scenario further. 3) The possible separation of Margot from her husband (John Turturro) is another unwanted disruption during the week. 4) Margot insinuates that Malcolm is cheating on their hired babysitter (for Pauline's first child). 5) Margot is having an affair with another neighbor (good 'ole Ciaran Hinds); this creates a huge dilemma (in what can be called the climax of the film). Margot instigates a myriad of other issues which pop-up throughout; all culminating in family crisis.
Pauline & Malcolm love each other, but will Margot have succeeded in tearing apart this union? From frame one, til the end, there is tension ... and then explosion. 'Prickly' is a word I'd use to define this family. You see, Margot has some severe personality disorders (she's sort of aware of them, but probably knows 'deep' inside that the ripple effects are more harmful to others than to her). She can't harness them; and she knows it (which makes it worse for someone of this nature). Though the last scene of the film is kind of out of nowhere; it exactly fits Margot's cycle of problems; I even saw it coming. After leaving the theater, I realized that the title of the film is just that. We know nothing of what happens/ed before or after the 'wedding' ... but we can sure take some wild guesses.
Kidman is great as our neurotic Margot. Jennifer Jason Leigh is just as impressive as the vulnerable, rough-around-the-edges sister who's trying to find happiness. There's always something about Leigh's delivery of lines (and her body language) that I find very familiar, comfortable, natural, and real. Overall, I found a majority of the scenes to be enjoyably vicious, snarky, quirky, & honest. The film captures the little, inane absurdities in families (especially btwn. siblings); the little things that gnaw at each other. I'm not overly enthusiastic about the movie as a whole. But there's a guilty pleasure in watching family trauma unfold. And I get a kick out of witnessing this 'type' of self-absorbed people onscreen that I kinda/sorta know. Haha, I'm neither proud nor shameful of that.