Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Comedy Of Malice, March 27, 2008
There's probably not been so dark a movie comedy as "Margot At The Wedding" in a long, long time, and this could be why it flopped at the box office. It appears to be asking a lot to expect an audience to show up for a film with a lead character this narcissistic and destructive (and played by a star as big as Nicole Kidman, no less.) But you need to go into this with the proper expectations. No one is going to change or grow, at least during the running time of the movie. Remember the old Seinfeld - The Complete Series rule; no hugging, and no learning anything? Ditto in spades for "Margot." Indeed, this movie is a lot like a 90 minute episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Sixth Season with all visible remaining sentiment altogether drained. I loved it, but Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Two-Disc Special Edition) is my idea of a classic comedy. I think there are powerful emotions of love at work in "Margot" but they jostle for position with selfishness, envy, and hostility. Kind of like a real family.
This movie also wears its influences on its sleeve. Margot is supposed to be an acclaimed fiction writer of the The New Yorker [1-year subscription]-magazine variety, and you need to approach this movie as a literary artifact. If you hated reading and explicating short stories in school, you probably won't like this movie. But if you get a thrill from figuring out complicated characters; or connecting the dots between subtle plot twists and developments, then this is the movie for you. Notice the opening and closing scenes of the movie, and what Margot says about her son's sunglasses. If you like to notice details like these and pick up on a film maker's hints, you will have a good time here. I have never been that big a fan of Kidman, (except to marvel at her beauty) but she is really, really good as the awful Margot. As somebody else wrote about her character, Margot is like an emotional terrorist who tosses bombs at any available target. But you get some hints about why she is like she is from the contradictory things she says about her dead father. (Notice how she and Jennifer Jason Leigh talk about him between themselves, and what she says about him in public at a book reading.) And she is a tortured soul, as you can see from her relationship with her kindly husband (John Turturro, in what amounts to a cameo.) She may be the smartest person in the room, but she is also the unhappiest. It's nice to see Jennifer Jason Leigh again as the (relatively) sane sister. Jack Black as Malcolm does a more subdued variation of his usual character. At first you think this goofy failed musician is going to be the beacon of normality for us through these hilariously wounded people. But, without giving too much away, Malcolm has his own issues and it's interesting how Black blends his own patented zaniness with the demands of this plot (particularly in his last scene.)
I think that a lot of the people who liked The Squid and the Whale (Special Edition) (Baumbach highly-praised previous movie) were disappointed by "Margot" because it lacked the nostalgia and coming-of-age elements that were kind of like the sugar coating over the bitter taste of the earlier film. I suppose an angry, successful, gorgeous Nicole Kidman is harder to take than the defeated, schlumpy (but just as angry) Jeff Daniels in "Squid" (even though they are playing very similar characters.) I think this is one of those movies that gets overlooked when first released but will grow in reputation as time passes. It's just really, really funny and truthful in ways we don't like to think about. And if nothing else, you will count your blessings about your own family.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Film for Grinding your Teeth and Scratching your Head, February 23, 2008
Noah Baumbach creates strange films, movies that are low budget in appearance (except for the sterling casts he assembles), dicey stories about dysfunctional people (and there is obviously a mirror here for seeing our own dysfunctional traits), moods that suggest the films of Ingmar Bergman shot with camera work that blurs the line of reality and fantasy, and in the end films that initiate discussion (both arguing for and against the quality of time the viewers have just spent). His are message films and while they may not entertain the mass number of filmgoers, they are an important aspect of the new American cinema.
Novelist Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son Claude (Zane Pais, in an impressive film debut) are traveling to Margot's semi-estranged sister's wedding: hippie Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is marrying the bizarre artist wannabe Malcolm (Jack Black) in the backyard of the girl's old home somewhere in New England. The sisters have a rocky relationship, strained by family secrets that include a distant mother and strange sister and a possibly pedophilia father, and strained by Margot's success as a writer (though she has failed in her marriage to the nebulous Jim - John Turturro - and is having an affair with another writer Dick - Ciarán Hinds - whose Harvard daughter Maisy - Halley Feiffer - is an oversexed thorn in the family's eyes), and strained by Pauline's lack of direction away from her past as a 'woman of loose morals' to the discovery that she is pregnant by the loser Malcolm. The entire story takes place on the weekend of Pauline's planned wedding and everything that could possibly go wrong does. Each of the sister's idiosyncrasies and maladjustments to life come into play and the only characters who seem to be able to make sense of any of the behavior abnormalities are the sisters' children - Claude and Pauline's daughter Ingrid (Flora Cross). If there is a focal point that rises out of all this dysfunctional behavior it is the manner in which Margot and Claude are bonded as mother and son - not a perfect balance of roles but one of great tenderness and intention.
Yes, there are some strangely comic aspects to this story, dark though they may be, but the overall impression is one of trying to understand why each of these strange characters has chosen their paths in life - and that opens the forum for viewer introspection and excellent post-viewing conversation. Much of the success of this little film is due to the fine performances by Kidman, Leigh, Pais, Turturro, Hinds, and Black. It is a very strong cast able to accompany us on this often confusing journey. Grady Harp, February 08
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
America's Most Dysfunctional, April 28, 2008
Like a promising souffle that rises toward perfection only to deflate disastrously, Noah Baumbach's "Margot at the Wedding" never blossoms into the good film that it strives to be.
It's patchy and uneven, and intentionally so. "Such is life", Baumbach seems to be saying, "..only a muddle of wounded egos thrashing about."
The patchiness extends from the cinematography (gorgeous and crisp outdoors, but muddy and weak-colored in interior scenes) to the performances. Nicole Kidman never really convinces as the Manhattanite writer, Margot...possibly because no scene in the movie establishes the character's competence at her profession. Jack Black, as the pathetic boy/man Malcolm, hams it up as he saws away at his own masculinity.
The best, and possibly the only redeeming performance in the film, comes from Zane Pais as the adolescent boy Claude, the sweet-faced spawn of Kidman, a role that nearly seems "imported" from a foreign film. Yes, Baumbach has seen Eric Roehmer's movies...but does he emulate them, or does he just want to seem "chic"?
There's a good story in this tragic-comic farce, but Baumbach isn't interested in telling it. He just wants to lead the viewer from one quirky, neurotic episode to another. Even when seen as a critique of a certain form of icky, snobby liberalism, the movie is flabby. Woody Allen certainly would have trimmed away some of the excess, if he had directed.
Some scenes are effective, and the film does take risks. It's just that there are too many indulgences. Only the very dedicated viewer will be able to weather the tiresomeness of it all.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
