Margot at the Wedding (2007)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Pretty Good

Excellent but underrated film

Blistering performances.

I'm a fan of his films, Greenberg is bitter and undeniably hilarious. Mistress America and Frances Ha are quirky and have a peculiar sense of humor but it gets to you. They are more indie in the sense that the plot revolves around young people realizing themselves, in one way or another. In this film none of the protagonists seem to have that effect on you. They are selfish and ridiculous in the bad sense of the word. The theme was interesting, family members wanting to help and forcing their opinions down on you, however the choice of actors IMO was poorly executed and Nicole Kidman could have done a better job or had have a supporting actress that would have taken the importance away from her. There were some scenes that were funny but overall I did not enjoy the film nor would I watch it again.

So the film definitely has some of the most unlikeable characters I've seen in a drama in a while, but the writing is constantly interesting and when you think the film is about to collapse it comes back to life. Still, not to say it isn't flawed or that it's "great" because it's not, but definitely effective. The whole cast is pretty great, although I wish someone else had been cast in Jack Black's role. Kidman especially is a force here, and it's mind-boggling how she failed to get an Oscar nomination for this. It also helps that she has a constantly unpredictable character, and where you shake your head at her and the others you also empathize with them in other ways.

I loved "The Squid and the Whale". And I loved "Greenberg"."Margot at the Wedding" is simply one of the most atrocious films I have ever seen, and one of the most disappointing products of such a great cast and director.There is not a single likable, redeemable character, nor is there a storyline that pays off. Imagine 90 minutes of watching a group of repugnant, shallow, neurotic people interacting and arguing about a wedding that we never get to see.Did I also mention the craft? The film is so amateurishly shot and cut together that you'll find yourself distracted by the lingering shots of an underexposed, awkwardly composed image. Or you might not understand the jarring shift in tone or pacing from an unmotivated scene change. I simply cannot wrap my head around what they were trying to achieve.And what makes it all even worse is what could have been. Noah Baumbach has proved himself to be a compelling director and storyteller in the past, even with unlikable characters such as Ben Stiller's Greenberg. Nicole Kidman often makes fascinating, adventurous choices in the roles she portrays. What we are left with is a sloppy, nihilistic mess of a film about a miserable family without any intuition of how decent humans should behave, thus robbing the audience of any sort of fulfillment or engagement that one would hope for in watching a film.If the film had ended with the tree falling on their house and killing them all, I might have seen a redeeming quality in the poetic justice of the situation. Instead I'm left with a bitter aftertaste of a meandering, boring, dreadful film about people with whom nobody could relate, and therefor engaging in their conflicts was in no way possible. It isn't easy to sympathize with such miserable souls such as those in this film... what a shame.

While an intelligent portrait of a highly dysfunctional family that shares a lot in tone and style with Baumbach's 'Squid and the Whale', this is colder, more distant and less moving. That's OK, and it's still WAY above most of what's out there, but it's hard not to feel there's a great movie trapped in this good one. One thing that hurts is that (unlike 'Squid') the acting is uneven. Jack Black, an actor I always enjoy, seems a bit uncomfortable playing a tragic as well as comic figure. But this is one of those complex films I'll re-visit one day, and could imagine liking more on re- seeing, being prepared for it's difficult tone.