Thursday, February 21, 2008

Margot at the Wedding - DVD Review

MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (**) - Starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, Zane Pais, John Turturro, Ciaran Hinds, Flora Cross and Halley Feiffer.
Directed by Noah Baumbach.

Intellectually I recognize there was some great acting going on here. Actors love playing flawed, dysfunctional characters, and this movie is full of them. But they are so flawed and dysfunctional and selfish and mean and immature that I didn't want to be around them anymore.

Kidman plays Margot, an older sister coming to visit her sister Pauline (Leigh) in Vermont the week of her wedding. Pauline's fiance is this oddball schlub Malcolm (Black) whom Margot instantly dislikes and spends the week passive-aggressively trying to get her sister to dump this guy, her delicate conidition thanks to him notwithstanding.

Baumbach's The Squid & the Whale was a painfully funny comedy-drama about two selfish, dysfunctional parents, and he one-ups himself here in the painful part. Great acting though.

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