While billed as sort of a bleak comedy, you should know this before you see Margot at the Wedding: while funny at (a lot of) times, the "bleak" definitely takes precedence over "comedy".
I have been a Noah Baumbach fan since Kicking and Screaming which perfectly captured my (post) college pseudo-angst (this movie is out on Criterion, and you want it, and NEED IT) and I loved "Mr. Jealousy" and "The Squid and The Whale too". Baumbach makes angry movies for civilized people.
In them, perfectly well educated, seemingly well mannered (and often unlikable) people fall apart at the seams in their artfully disheveled Brooklyn brownstones, their perfectly manicured small liberal arts colleges and in this case, their family beach homes and it is always a thrill to watch.
And why?
Because well educated people insult each other in significantly more quotable ways, that's why.
The story is simple: Margot (Nicole Kidman, pretty yet dowdy in a way smart women who know they're beautiful sometimes are), a patrician, early 40s Manhatannite (she keeps reminding everyone she lives in Manhattan), escaping a not-so-perfect-but-perfectly-respectable-marriage arrives, son Claude (who is wonderfully awkward and 13) to her family's beach home in what looks like Maine to me to see her sister Pauline (Jenifer Jason Leigh, at her most fragile) marry Malcolm (Jack Black, sporting ironic mustache and a majorly major paunch) a "musician and letter writer".
Needless to say, Margot disaproves.
Rounding out the cast are: Pauline's daughter, a well known next-door writer (who Margot is sleeping with), his sexy 17 year old daughter ("She is stupid!"-proclaims Margot. "She got into Harvard early"-says Claude, to which she promptly retorts "That means nothing. A LOT OF stupid people get into Harvard early") and a hilariously rednecky neighbouring family who want to cut down the tree Pauline and Malcolm are planning to get married under. (the house and the garden are characters as well)
Over the next few days:
They eat. (homemade bread and mussels)
They drink. (white wine with ice cubes)
They read. (their own and self-help books)
They climb trees. (and get stuck)
They talk about music and family and art and love and they play croquet (while wearing sweaters and shorts and boat shoes).
Emotions flare.
Childhood and young adulthood rivalries come alive. (the swimming scene is amazing: "Margot, you cheated!" "What does it matter, I didn't win anyway!")
New problems develop by the second.
Old problems refuse to go away.
Pauline is weak but determined. (Noah Baumbach gave Jenifer Jason Lee, his wife, a plum if less showy sister role)
Margot is a monster. (Nicole Kidman is baiting the Oscar by the second, despite the fact that at this point she cannot move her face from all the botox)
Malcolm is an overeducated, too-smart-for-his-own-good loser, who can't deal with rejection. So he doesn't even try.
Their children are confused and lost and yet somehow the only sane people in this whole mess.
AND EVERYONE, EVERYONE IS SINFULLY SELFISH.
It is all very sad, and yet very entertaining too, and over the course of (a very trim) hour and a half, we witness the unstoppably downward spiral of this family.
Go and see it.
But bring some prozac for afterwards.
And I mean it.
God loves a cheerful giver.
Don't forget John Turturro. His character was a pretty normal guy. It was interesting to see him play against type as the token weirdo.
yes.
every time I see him though, I want to step into the screen and hand him a bowling ball to lick.
After watching this movie last night I went online and read a bunch of reviews on it. Yours was BY FAR the best. Too bad nobody pays you for this.
Even though some people may have thought Jack Black was being too Jack Blacky in this film, and those some people may have been right, it doesn't matter, cause he is so god damn amazing. The scene where he flips out and is going crazy and then is like "looking back on all this, you're gonna see that this, what I'm doing now, this is the proper reaction someone should have" and then goes and destroys some plant life "let's fuck"
PS. I still hate Kicking and Screaming
PPS. It drove me insane when she left her purse in the parking lot
when she left her purse in the parking lot it drove me nuts too.
but i did love kicking and screaming: "essentially, i hate you. basically, you're a fuckhead."
I just watched Kicking and Screaming, and how is it no one addresses the creepiness of a college graduate dating a ditzy, under-age high school senior?
that is not real life.
other than that, though, I thought it was pretty okay.
Kicking and Screaming in retrospect, is maybe not a cohesive whole but it has so many great lines and makes so much fun of your standard issue 22 year old issues that it is still a landmark movie for me. I think you just need to see it at the right time for you.
I now own Margot at a Wedding. I saw this at the movie theatre with my mom and since she is a rock, it was good to have her there. Have actually been afraid to rewatch it by myself. I think I need someone to hold my hand.
I made the mistake of watching Squid and the Whale with my parents. Awkward moments ensued.
A just graduated college student dating a high school senior is not real life where, precisely?
it's just not real life that no one addresses it, at the very least to mock him for it (or congratulate him, I guess...).