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Margot at the Wedding
Movie
Margot at the Wedding
Director
Noah Baumbach
Producer
Scott Rudin
Cast
Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Justin Roth

AP

If you sat through The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach’s 2005 comedy-drama about a family of spiteful narcissists do even more damage to themselves and their loved ones when they are torn apart by divorce, and felt that the characters were just too cuddly and charming for your tastes, then his latest effort, Margot at the Wedding, should be right up your alley.

This is a film that introduces us to some of the most decidedly unpleasant characters to grace a movie screen in a long time and then asks us to become involved in their bitchy and hateful escapades for 90-odd minutes. The result: a lot of good and brave performances in the service of a film that is as profoundly annoying and irritating that you’ll want to do a reverse Purple Rose of Cairo and jump into the screen just so that you can slap some sense into the characters.

With her 11 year-old son Claude (Zane Pais) in tow, Margot (Nicole Kidman) is anxiously travelling to her childhood home to attend the wedding of her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to unemployed oaf, Malcolm (Jack Black). An egotistical, self-absorbed, judgmental woman, Margot instantly disapproves of the union, going about her business wrecking lives as she enjoys the weekend festivities. Soon enough, her poison is rebuffed by family and lovers (Ciaran Hinds), leaving her in a state of panic as she gradually re-examines her own life.

Baumbach can author screechingly hilarious material for his characters, but he’s at his most persuasive when he wades into behavioural muck. Margot is an extension of the observational diamonds he unearthed in Squid, retreating even further into the lethal nuances of sisterhood and the fatigue of know-it-alls. Margot is a brutal, wonderful movie; it draws blood in the manner it dramatises conflict and humiliation with front row curiosity, yet remaining one of the most satisfying comedies of this year.

Holding hands with his idols Bergman and Rohmer, Baumbach attacks Margot with an open range, documentarian style, as though he’s capturing these characters in their natural state of loathing, without the assistance of artifice. A character study, Baumbach’s script careens wildly—shadowing Margot’s tour of destruction, studying the impulses of the characters as they blurt out horrible things to each other—as if basic communication was an open invitation to insult each other. Margot is embarrassed by her sister’s attraction to Malcolm, equally repulsed and dependent on her son’s attention, and finds herself drawn to conflict as a means to reinforce her own intelligence. These are broad strokes, but Margot is striking in the way it uses the shrillness of the character to examine the larger scope of cancerous domestic ties and compulsive self-satisfaction.

Nicole Kidman brings this character to life as a fountain of hypocrisy, and it’s a lovely performance that constantly develops over the course of the picture. Baumbach places an enormous amount of trust in his talent, and that permissiveness takes the picture in a million delirious directions, some moody and vile, others mortifying, but he’s willing to follow wherever they lead. The film boldly asks the audience for their participation in the processing of motivation; love or hate these people, but it’s tough to argue their humanity and unnervingly recognisable behaviour.

Baumbach works his cinema verite muscles to a point of soreness, but the effort results in an unexpected delight. Perhaps Margot at the Wedding isn’t for the caustic sibling squeamish, but it’s a wonderful picture, informed with a powerful sense of honesty and comedy that’s so robust and exhilarating, it could cause whiplash.