Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 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.
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6 of 6 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 or Elaine May certainly would have trimmed away some of the excess, if either 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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's Hard To Find People In The World You Love As Much As Your Family, April 18, 2008
Full of intimacy and charm, Margot At The Wedding is the story of two estranged sisters-Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh-reuniting on the eve of Lee's down scale wedding to Jack Black.
From the beginning, Margot's (Kidman) motives for attending her sister's wedding are suspect. She pretends to be supportive, but divulges her sister's pregnancy secret to her 11 year old son in one of their talks that sound more like husband and wife conversations rather than mother and son. Margot's run away from her husband to be with an old university lover who just happens to live near her sister, and she's scheduled a talk at a local book store to promote her work. There's also the underlying suspicion that Margot may just be around to cull her family's pain to fill a few more pages in her writer's notebook.
I've read the negative reviews here and I'll concede that this is a heady movie. Margot is intelligent and caustic. If you think Annie Hall was irritating, you'll find even fewer in-roads into Margot's character. Margot is vulnerable for five seconds in this film-when she divulges her plans to move near her lover-which makes the ending of the film even more endearing. I don't agree with the reviews that commented "people don't talk this way" because well, ummm, my family does. I thought this was an intelligent and well written script.
Jennifer Jason Leigh's character tells Margot's son that "it's hard to find people in the world you love as much as your family". This family suffers from some dysfunction but they also are blessed with having the kind of relationships that are so intimate they're soul changing. I think the director and writer did a wonderful job of capturing this family relationship. But I loved Annie Hall too. Margot At The Wedding may be an acquired taste for some and others may never get it, but I really loved this film.
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