Review - Margot at the Wedding
In one particularly effective scene in Margot at the Wedding, Jack Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh argue while Black loosely holds a chainsaw. You can’t watch the scene without imagining the worst. It doesn’t happen, but the point’s been made – this coterie of bickering intimates is shitting dysfunction all over the place, and someone's going to eventually slip and lose a limb. At least an emotional one.
Now here are three things you’re unlikely to see again soon: Nicole Kidman climbing a tree, Jack Black’s ass, and Nicole Kidman masturbating. While such innocent vulgarities are not necessarily touchstones of quality, they do represent the kind of wonderfully base surprises with which Noah Baumbach has salted both this and his previous film, The Squid and the Whale. (Disclaimer: Baumbach’s father, on whom the character of the father in The Squid and the Whale was based or I’m not wearing dirty underwear, was my creative writing professor at Brooklyn College. Back in ‘88 I asked him how I did on the final test, one of the final rungs in achieving that coveted ticket to Big Money, an MFA. He replied, “You passed. Not with flying colors, but you passed.” So…you know. That still rankles.)
Anyhoo, Margot at the Wedding is another winner. The themes read so similar to Squid, it's obvious Baumbach’s working something out. And this injects the entire enterprise with the heartbreaking ring of truth. Here again is an intellectual parent, this time Nicole Kidman’s Margot, torturing her offspring with passive aggression and blatant hostility. Watching the imbalance of power between her and her helplessly put-upon son will resonate alarmingly with anyone who’s had a nutjob for a parent. (Disclaimer: Oh never mind.)
The story's about a reunion between Margot and her sister, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who's about to marry obvious loser Black. Dark hilarity and truthful acting abound. If there’s a problem to be ferreted out, it’s with Nicole Kidman. Realism doesn’t become here, even the kind played out by kooks. She’s as game as they come, but you see her on screen, in all her sharp, angular beauty, and it's like she’s from another planet (called Hollywood). I didn’t envy her, having to bare her acting chops in front of the multi-layered and full-head shorter Jennifer Jason Leigh. Leigh's low to the ground -- down to earth. A compact acting dervish. Kidman's large. A singing, dying Satine in Moulin Rouge, yes. The evil Mrs. Coulter in the upcoming A Golden Compass – very yes. But here, playing a “borderline personality,” as Margot is described, Kidman goes brittle. Nasty, without displaying any of the magnetism this type of cancerous figure can usually call upon when advantageous. She did better as the victimized heroine in Lar Von Trier’s Dogville, a drama so heated it could contain her Stardom.
Go see Margot at the Wedding. Characters this rich don’t come a dime a dozen these days. Ditto a full-on shot of Jack Black’s ass.
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