Margot at the Wedding is far from providing a ‘Happily Ever After’ ending.
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Writer / director Noah Baumbach has a number of recurring themes in his two critically applauded films "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding." Both films feature a main character who is a writer with personal emotional issues and suffer a collapsed marriage. Each film features children caught in an unhappy place while their parents find new partners in life. They contain dark and comedic moments with plenty of drama that takes a deep look at the harsher realities of life. Characters are flawed and prone to deceit and infidelity and both films benefit from a strong cast of talented actors. Neither film has found great box office success and has typically flown under the radar of American audiences, but both "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding" are well thought out pictures for an adult audience.
"Margot at the Wedding" finds A-list actors Nicole Kidman and Jack Black sharing screen time with Baumbach´s wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh and newcomer Zane Pais. Kidman and Leigh portray sisters Margot and Pauline with Leigh´s Pauline being engaged to Malcolm (Black). The two sisters have deep-rooted emotional problems stemming from their childhood and while they consider each other to be close, they are two different people who gel about as well as oil and water. Margot is a writer who suffers from severe Neurosis and Pauline is a care-free woman who looks at life as a series of personal and sexual adventures and could care less about personal success. Margot arrives in town for Pauline´s wedding, but her reasons for the visit are potentially three-fold with a book signing scheduled on the same weekend and Margot´s lover living just up the street.
From the moment Margot arrives at the family home, there is great tension between the two women. Margot is very much against the notion of Pauline marrying the unemployed and grossly-unattractive Malcolm. She tells her husband Jim (John Turturro) during an early phone conversation of her dislike for Malcom and how her sister deserves better. Jim was asked by Margot to not join her on the trip, as he is unaware that is wife has full intentions of leaving him. Pauline discovers Margot´s infidelity and is offended and unsupportive of her sister´s motivations for the visit and her choice in an adulterous affair. The disagreements between the two women run far deeper than their dislike of the other´s romantic choices and during the most routine conversations they try to embarrass or ridicule the other. They drag their children Claude (Zane Pais) and Ingrid (Flora Cross) into their unhappiness, as Claude does not know that his mother plans on leaving his father and Ingrid is unaware that her mother is pregnant to Malcolm and keeping this knowledge a secret to herself.
The film moves uneasily from each life experience to another with a growing separate between the sisters and continual distress between Malcolm and Pauline. While the movie begins with everybody having doubts of their relationships, the problems only begin to run deeper and stronger as more is revealed. Before the end of the film, Margot discovers that her lover Dick (Ciaran Hinds) is not the man she believed him to be and that her relationship with her son is beginning to suffer. Pauline discovers that Malcolm engaged in pedophilic acts with their babysitter, the well-endowed Maisy (Halley Feiffer); who happens to be Dick´s daughter. Margot and Pauline find more and more reasons to distrust and dislike the other as they betray each other´s secrets and stomp on the romantic feelings of the other. What started off as tension based around a wedding quickly throws the entire family into complete disarray.
Aside from having to witness the complete bare backside of Jack Black, I enjoyed what "Margot at the Wedding" brought to the table. The DVD arrived in screener form, wrapped like a wedding present and was complete with a nice white satin bow. I hadn´t heard much from the film and had expected a knock-off of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" or a film completely focused towards the female demographics. Instead of being another weepy romantic comedy or formulaic carbon-copy, "Margot at the Wedding" was an interesting character study on the dynamics of a dysfunctional pair of sisters who lack a degree of self confidence and have been thrust into potentially horrendous romantic affairs.
The audience is given an almost voyeuristic look at the crumbling emotional states of the three principal characters. Noah Baumbach and cinematographer Harris Savides provide visuals reminiscent of high quality home videos that present the impression that perhaps the audience is the one holding the camcorder. We are given a front seat view of the arguments between Margot and Pauline. As an audience, we are witness to situations that are often unpleasant and always personal. Malcolm looks into a mirror and obsesses over a small penis while we gaze at his overweight bare ass. A stoned Margot talks over the head of her child in words he cannot comprehend and then retreats to her room and masturbates. Pauline defecates into her own underwear during a moment of anxiety. Claude and Malcolm obsess over the buxom chest of Maisy, who revels in wearing tight and low-cut clothing. The stark situations depicted in "Margot at the Wedding" now only show the audience the unraveling of the characters, but it tries its hardest to pull us into their decaying world.
Though infidelity and sexuality are important themes in "Margot at the Wedding," I would hardly call the film sensual or sexy. It is not even remotely romantic or tender. A bare-breasted Pauline complains about her sister and a naked and frustrated Malcolm´s idea of foreplay is to use sex as a means of shutting her up. There is nothing lovey-dovey about the situation. Tenderness is thrown aside for constant bickering and disagreement. Lust is not portrayed as being out of love, but out of necessity. The female leads discuss at some length their storied sexual pasts and plainly state that their promiscuous behavior is solely for the purpose of having sex and not being in love. I cannot think of a singular romantic moment during the entire film and about the only heartfelt scene was near the end when an emotionally destroyed Malcolm begs the heartbroken Pauline to give him another chance and not end their engagement.
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[release]23125[/release]