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Margot at the Wedding
Posted on July 9, 2008
Filed Under Dean's Reviews, Independent Films, New Release DVD
Margot at the Wedding is the newest film from writer/director Noah Baumbach. As was the case with his previous effort, The Squid and the Whale, Margot tracks the misadventures of a bookish family on the verge of oblivion. While less overtly pedantic, Margot is every bit as intelligent, witty and cruelly honest. Margot (Nicole Kidman) is a well-known (to the literati, at least) fiction writer. She is chilly and enigmatic, but fascinating to be around. Wherever she goes, trouble seems to follow. Her teenage son (Zain Pais, in a heartbreakingly brilliant debut) has some serious attachment issues, verging on a full-fledged Oedipus complex. Together they fly out to Margot’s sister’s wedding. What ensues is something of a train wreck. Whether you want to or not, you just look can’t look away.
Margot’s sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is engaged to Malcolm (Jack Black), an unemployed slacker who fancies himself a struggling writer and artist. As a couple, they are intelligent but underachieving fatalists. And having Margot around isn’t going to help at all. She comes in like a whirling dervish, force-feeding her paranoid theories and repeating every nugget of gossip told to her in confidence. What Baumbach really excels at is dialogue and interaction. Without resorting to pithy back-and-forths or bombastic showdowns, the characters deconstruct and analyze of one another almost nonsensically until they are all pushed to brink of madness.
Baumbach has come a long way since his whiny and self conscious debut Kicking and Screaming (1995), and in his maturity has begun to make challenging and entertaining tragicomedies that will stand the test of time. I would put his last two works up there with any film of the last five years. 9 out of 10.
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