106) Margot At The WeddingDirector: Noah BaumbachYear: 2007Plot Summary: Margot sets off on a surprise journey to the wedding of her estranged and free-spirited sister.
What the hell went wrong? As I've said before in this blog, nobody does a dysfunctional family comedy as well as Noah Baumbach. However, with Margot At The Wedding, he has produced one of the most self-indulgent, humourless and painfully dull movies that I have encountered in a long time.
Here's where I would usually introduce you to some small details about the story. But, the thing about Margot At The Wedding is that there is no story. And I don't mean that as in it's a loosely plotted, slice-of-life kind of narrative, I genuinely mean that nothing happens in the movie. Margot goes to her sister's wedding and reminisce a bit and argue here and there and she has a sort-of fling with a friend at some point and that's it!
I could see the appeal in writing a story as unformulatic as this if there are strong characters to back it up, but not a single one of the main players in Margot At The Wedding deserves more than five minutes of your attention. Jack Black's character is possibly clinically depressed, Margot is out of place in the countryside and the rest of them just seem to wander about without any motives or personality whatsoever. Even more, they're all terribly performed. The aforementioned Black is embarrassing to watch while Kidman is as lifeless and loathsome as always. Even, dare I say it, the wonderful Jennifer Jason Leigh fails to shine. After the brilliant character studies and performances in The Squid And The Whale and Greenberg, this makes the movie such a disappointment.
Moreover, I could maybe forgive these things if Margot At The Wedding was very funny. But I laughed twice in the entire 92 minutes. Twice. I laughed more times in Precious, for christ's sake, and that was one of the most disturbing movies I've seen all year!
Usually, I can award some positive comments, nevertheless, to a movie that has a good soundtrack, that's well directed or that has a few nice shots. But I found myself clutching at straws trying to find a single positive statement to write in this review. Even such little things like the sound production and production design are atrocious here. The single positive comment I could come up with was this: The young boy playing Margot's son has similar eyebrows to Nicole Kidman so the casting was pretty decent.
I think the fact that I chose that as my positive comment says more about Margot At The Wedding than any adjectives ever could.
1/5
1 comments:
Ouch! Haven't seen this and probably won't now.
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