Review: Margot at the Wedding

Nicole Kidman could make any movie she wanted to. She could make a film about the inner world of a paint mold and we would all probably watch it and admire her performance. Admire it not so much for its worth, but because Kidman could chose to make anything she wants and she continues to make films which are passion projects, instead of blockbusters. Perhaps The Golden Compass is a recent exception to this rule, but even that film wasn’t without controversy and her performance was pretty spectacular.

One of the films I failed to see last year (yes I am ashamed) is Margot at the Wedding. The sixth feature of one the best American directors alive, Noah Baumbach. His previous film The Squid and the Whale was a fantastic, comical and very real film about a family dealing with the effects of a divorce. Margot at The Wedding is also about family, but unlike The Squid and the Whale, it is less appealing, decidedly darker, but, to me at least, way more funny.

Margot at the Wedding tells the story of Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son Claude (Zane Pais) as they attend Margot’s sister, Pauline’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding to the unemployed artist Malcolm (Jack Black.) Margot is over simply described as a heinous witch. With a different actress she may well have been just that, but Kidman gives her a bit of humanity, where even if we don’t like her, we still care what happens to her. The rest of the cast gives pretty solid performances as well, even Jack Black, who usually just annoys me to death. There are too many subplots to mention them all here. In fact there may just be too many subplots.

Perhaps the most compelling component of this film was the relationship between Claude and Margot. In fact the film spends more time on this relationship than the relationship between Margot and her sister. I can simply describe it as one the most intriguingly creepy relationship dynamics I have seen it quite awhile. And, for this reason alone, the film is worth a look.

I am going to cut this review short as the joy of Margot at the Wedding is discovering its idiosyncratic nature. However, I will say the film is not your normal run-of-the-mill comedy and it also not the Wes Anderson copy that some have called it. Wes Anderson is a fine director, sometimes, but Baumbach is in another more compelling league. Anderson if the flashy, silly side of family relations and Baumbach is the soul of them.

Also on purely technically note the sound mixing in the film annoyed me. However, the rest of the film was good enough that this very small, very particular issue is best left ignored.

Coming Up Next: Speed Racer Review, Trials of Darryl Hunt Review and Overated films.