1/5 Catastrophic. A terrible
film. Ineptly conceived and executed, it's almost impossible to imagine any audience
getting anything out of this.
2/5 Poor. A bad film. You should only really sit though this if you’re a big fan of an associated actor or director, otherwise,
skip it.
3/5 Decent. A good film. Entertaining enough, but is either deeply flawed or simply lacks anything to make
it outstanding.
4/5 Recommended. A very strong
film. Highly recommended, particularly to genre fans, but which has some minor
problems.
5/5 Exceptional. One of the
finest of its kind. A film that should be recommended to any movie lover.
Margot at the Wedding
Dir: Noah Baumbach
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black,
Zane Pais, Ciaran Hinds
Rather than lighten up after the caustic The Squid and the Whale
writer/director Noah Baumbach goes the other way, getting even darker with this tale of two deeply dysfunctional sisters;
Margot (Kidman) and Pauline (Leigh) reuniting for the week of Pauline’s wedding to Malcolm (Black).
Baumbach can certainly write, but he’s no visual stylist. Margot
at the Wedding is a flat, dull, ugly looking film, it’s shot almost entirely in greys and browns and often looks
as dead as the tree that Margot climbs in one scene. Add this to the fact that almost all of the characters, even those who
seem at first to be decent, end up being hateful and often malevolent and it’s easy to see why a lot of critics and
audiences reacted strongly against this film. It’s tough to warm to, and that’s deliberate.
Margot is one of the foulest protagonists put on film in a long time; a nasty, hateful harridan, with barely
a redeeming feature, she’s vile to everyone around her, particularly her estranged sister, though she still refers to
Pauline as ‘my best friend’. It’s a pretty brave performance on the part of Nicole Kidman, as it goes out
of the way to alienate the audience, but it’s also one of Kidman’s best performances in a long time. Among the rest of the cast Jack Black shows unexpected dramatic chops as Malcolm, while also bringing some
welcome, if understated, comedy to the table and, odd a couple as they make, there’s a genuine connection between him
and Jennifer Jason Leigh, which allows you to sympathise with Pauline and Malcolm, fuck up’s though they are.
Baumbach also proves again that he’s adept at getting strong performances from young actors, drawing
nice turns from Zane Pais as Margot’s son and, in a smaller part Flora Cross as Pauline’s daughter.
It would be easy to lay charges of nepotism at Baumbach’s door for casting his wife as Pauline, but
then his wife is Jennifer Jason Leigh, and when you get a chance to cast an actor that good you grab it. Watching Leigh play
against Kidman is an object lesson in the difference between a good actor and a great one. Strong as Kidman is she’s
always Nicole Kidman, playing Margot, you can always hear the wheels turn, always see her acting. With Leigh though the actress
simply isn’t there, she goes away, leaving only Pauline. It’s one of the most normal roles Leigh has played and
she’s absolutely wonderful in it, she breathes, seemingly effortlessly, life into this sad, but still hopeful, woman.
As good as the acting is, though, and as sharply observed as Baumbach’s screenplay seems, it’s
often hard to care about what’s happening, certainly to Margot. The people in this movie, besides Pauline, who is mostly
guilty of being naïve, are just so awful to one another that whenever something bad happens to one of them you simply shrug.
That’s a problem because, in a piece that is so character driven, you have to be able to care, and as the credits roll
you just don’t.
Film: 3/5
JJL: 5/5
