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Amazon.co.uk review
A small, finely crafted indie drama of true quality, Margot At The Wedding is the latest offering from Noam Baumbach. While his name may not yet cause very many flickers of recognition, anyone who saw his hugely humane, tragicomic masterpiece The Squid And The Whale, will be beating a path to see his latest film. And they won’t be disappointed. Margot At The Wedding tells the story of two estranged sisters. There’s Nicole Kidman’s acerbic Margot, a writer, and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s new-age Pauline. Margot is ostensibly taking her young son to Pauline's wedding, but she's really running from her disastrous marriage. Frosty and overly intellectual on the surface, the two sisters begin to grapple with their veiled feelings and hurtful memories from the past. The film provides the foundation for a deep and often painful exploration of the insecurities, idiosyncrasies and challenges of family life.
Interspersing comedy with drama, Margot At The Wedding is a quiet yet highly notable achievement. Kidman is in terrific, neurotic, form in the titular role, and Jack Black pops up in a serious supporting role as the depressed groom to be. Behind the camera, Baumbach more than delivers, with his succinct film coming in at a lean 89 minutes. Make no mistake: Baumbach is one to watch. For now, let us offer up Margot At The Wedding as the latest evidence. --Jon Foster
Synopsis
Writer-director Noah Baumbach follows up his Oscar-nominated The Squid and the Whale with another bitingly funny and painfully honest dissection of family life. This time around, the topic is sisterhood. Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her adolescent son Claude (Zane Pais) take a train from New York City to Long Island, where Margot's sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is about to get married to Malcolm (Jack Black). Even though Margot is a successful writer with a compassionate husband (John Turturro), she is repressed, bitter, insecure, and angry, and she takes out her frustrations on anyone and everyone around her. Pauline is initially happy that her sister has decided to come to the wedding, but she quickly realises that Margot is still her terrible old self. Over the course of a few days, past conflicts erupt and present conflicts explode, threatening not only to put a damper on the wedding, but to ruin it completely.
Baumbach's gift for dialogue is unmatched. His seemingly effortless ability to blend humour with seriousness makes it difficult to categorize Margot at the Wedding as a drama or a comedy, for it is both. Kidman proves that her Academy Award wasn't a fluke, delivering a fearless performance that is at times difficult to watch in its virulence. Baumbach's wife, Leigh, is her typically exceptional self, but it's Black who is the film's true revelation, playing it straight like never before, to heartbreaking effect. Featuring stark naturalistic photography by the great Harris Savides (Gerry, Zodiac), Margot at the Wedding is another major accomplishment from Baumbach.
Baumbach's gift for dialogue is unmatched. His seemingly effortless ability to blend humour with seriousness makes it difficult to categorize Margot at the Wedding as a drama or a comedy, for it is both. Kidman proves that her Academy Award wasn't a fluke, delivering a fearless performance that is at times difficult to watch in its virulence. Baumbach's wife, Leigh, is her typically exceptional self, but it's Black who is the film's true revelation, playing it straight like never before, to heartbreaking effect. Featuring stark naturalistic photography by the great Harris Savides (Gerry, Zodiac), Margot at the Wedding is another major accomplishment from Baumbach.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
`Margot at the Wedding' is a slow paced, dull and completely miss-able film. It follows a family reunion (before a wedding we never get to see) and looks at the dysfunctional relationship between two sisters and between a mother and her son. The acting is OK, but not fantastic and the main issue with this film is that you have no idea what motivates the characters and makes them behave in the ways they do. Kidman's character is a cross between a bygone hippy and repressed neurotic, a very strange mix. You get glimpses of her `wild' past with talk of drug taking and casual sex and yet she seems so buttoned up and repressed as an adult it all becomes quite irrelevant. You never quite find out what happened to her to make her so objectionable and argumentative as an adult and it quickly gets tiresome to see her constantly snipe and complain to the other characters. Jack Black is quite good in a more serious role and it makes a refreshing change from the whooping and gurning in his more comedic roles. This is one of those film with no real beginning, storyline or ending and where as usually this makes for an endearing look at everyday life, here it came across as contrived and boring. From the trailers I saw of this I was expecting great things, almost a comedy type film, instead you get 88 minutes of turgid storyline, average acting and unsatisfying viewing. This is easily one you can miss without any worries.
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Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a film that will probably sharply divide the audience. I suspect that some will find it deep and meaningful, and others (like me) will find it pretentious and pointless.
The film centres around Margot (Kidman), invited to her estranged sister's wedding and with her young son in tow. Margot is a self centred prat who proceeds to annoy everyone around her and causes much chaos.
Probably intended as a character study, the film comes over as pointless. The characters are pretty one dimensional, and don't really develop. There are hints of back stories that could be interesting, and might explain a character's behaviour, but these are only hinted at and never explored. Added to which the characters are almost universally unlikeable, most of them being the sort of people I would cross the road to avoid. It is hard to watch a film when you just cannot engage with any of the characters.
The director leads the characters through a series of situations, populated by random other characters who suddenly appear out of nowhere then vanish again for no apparently good reason. It's a rather confused and meaningless mess which doesn't have anything to say to me. I resent having wasted time watching it to the end. 1 star only.
The film centres around Margot (Kidman), invited to her estranged sister's wedding and with her young son in tow. Margot is a self centred prat who proceeds to annoy everyone around her and causes much chaos.
Probably intended as a character study, the film comes over as pointless. The characters are pretty one dimensional, and don't really develop. There are hints of back stories that could be interesting, and might explain a character's behaviour, but these are only hinted at and never explored. Added to which the characters are almost universally unlikeable, most of them being the sort of people I would cross the road to avoid. It is hard to watch a film when you just cannot engage with any of the characters.
The director leads the characters through a series of situations, populated by random other characters who suddenly appear out of nowhere then vanish again for no apparently good reason. It's a rather confused and meaningless mess which doesn't have anything to say to me. I resent having wasted time watching it to the end. 1 star only.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a very good follow up film from Noah Baumback, and if you enjoyed 'The Squid And The Whale' the this is very similar in tone. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Nicole Kidman were both excellent, though Jack Black really seemed way out of his depth and the film really highlights the fact that the only character Jack Black can play is Jack Black. Black's shakey performance aside, the film is a terrific look at the relationship between two very different sisters, one an easy going family woman and the other an arrogant, narcissistic and selfish mother who puts her own needs far above her own family. And while the film is labelled as a comedy, it is far more subtle and dark than laugh out loud comedy, so if you're expecting laughs you're going to be disappointed, but of you enjoy small character based films then this is well worth a look.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Margot shouldn't have gone to the wedding basically!!
What a fantastic film - Kidman is brilliant and I couldn't help wincing at her brilliant portrayal of a complex and let's face it messed-up character. Read more
Published 10 months ago by LACreative
Not good
I feel rather saddened to think I wasted 89 minutes of my life watching this film. Funny it was not, thought provoking - No, Entertaining defiantly not. Read more
Published 13 months ago by TwoBobBit
Odd film, but easy transaction!
Fine, no problems at all, thank you very much.
It was a strange film, but I have seen other films by this director (the squid and the whale) so I knew to expect... Read more
It was a strange film, but I have seen other films by this director (the squid and the whale) so I knew to expect... Read more
Published on 22 May 2010 by L. MacFarlane
Indie bohemian angst
Margot at the Wedding is an indie film about real people, and has a circular structure.It starts with a train ride from Manhatton to Long Island by Margot, a writer, and her son... Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2009 by technoguy
Wonderful Film
I seem to only ever want to write a review, when I watch a terrible film. So I though this time, I would review an excellent film. Read more
Published on 27 Nov 2008 by Film Fan
an odd way to pass time
one of those films with no start and no end, no real story-line and no likeable characters. but nonetheless totally absorbing. kidman is amazing (i normally dislike her). Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2008 by Scooterboy
Miss it! Miss it!
I am obviously not grown up if one has to judge by other reviews on this site. I think Nicole Kidman is great and yes, as usual her acting scores mahor points, but as for the movie... Read more
Published on 19 Aug 2008 by GJ Botha
at the wedding
I really liked this movie, even if The Squid and the Whale is a notch better. There are a lot of screwed up characters, self deception and pathological relationships. Read more
Published on 23 July 2008 by MarkusG
Adult Entertainment
If there ever was a film that deserved to be put in the 'stuff white people like' category, Margot at the Wedding is it. Read more
Published on 5 July 2008 by sainte-carmen
Okay
After watching The Squid and The Whale (one of my favorite films of all time) I was so looking forwards to watching this film. I have just got back from watching it. Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2008 by Mr. A. G. Coy
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