Margot at the Wedding - B-

In theaters. Rated R, 92 minutes. Trailer.

Plumbing the depths of soulless and amoral New Yorkers is an odd niche, but it is the one that writer/director Noah Baumbach has gotten wedged into. Best known for writing/directing the Squid and the Whale (B+) and co-writing The Life Aquatic with Wes Anderson, Baumbach continues his exploration of dysfunction among the Ivy League set with Margot at the Wedding.

Nicole Kidman is excellent as Margot, the nasty and destructive older sister to Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh - Baumbach's wife in real life) and mother to Claude. After years of estrangement, Margot decides to attend the wedding of her sister Pauline and Malcolm (Jack Black) at the family's home place on Long Island. Click the link below for the rest of the review.


Whereas Woody Allen explores the lighter side of the neurotic intellectual, Baumbach prefers to dwell on their nastiness and faux-superiority. Margot is a self-loathing, semi-famous author, and her neuroses are inflicted upon those closest to her. She resents Malcolm for making Pauline happy and resents her son for growing up and making her feel guilty for being a bad mother. She lies, betrays and awkwardly criticizes everyone in the family, ultimately ruining the event in a short 3 days. Her character is a maze of confidence, frailty, love, hate, self-loathing and failure, and Kidman pulls it off and more(even if her overly botoxed face was a little distracting). Her relationship with Pauline (mean older sister that resents her younger sister's happiness) breaks no new ground and isn't interesting anyway.

The neighbors (the Voglers) are simple and 'backward' relative to Margot and Pauline's clan, and they want them to tear down the large family tree because the roots are poisoning the Vogler's plants. The Voglers are weird, but happy and appear to be have a loving relationship, as opposed to the stilted and caustic family atmosphere on the other side of the fence.

The film has some funny moments - "Margot thinks everybody is autistic" - but overall the film is an interesting but hard to watch character study of a woman who insists on isolation but needs to be loved. Give me Husbands and Wives, Crimes and Misdemeanors, or Pollock any day. Obviously, this won't impact my top 20 of 2007 list.