The Suppurating Asshole of Mutual Acrimony and Defeat
Margot at the Wedding / Daniel Carlson
Noah Baumbach is one relentlessly bleak filmmaker, and that’s not a compliment. It’s not that his films are necessarily evil, or even completely off-target; rather, one of the things that makes Baumbach so slippery is his habit of stumbling onto moments of slight emotional truth in the middle of a film completely devoid of it. Baumbach’s debut, 1995’s Kicking and Screaming, was funnier, wittier, and often sharper than anything a beginning filmmaker could hope to achieve, and it’s clear now that his early period will forever dwarf the muted stories and bitter characterizations of his later works. Something terrible must have happened to Baumbach in his unemployed interim between 1997’s Mr. Jealousy and 2004’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, which Baumbach co-wrote with director Wes Anderson. It’s no accident that The Life Aquatic was Anderson’s first film to have a thoroughly unlikable protagonist whose supposed moment of existential revelation wasn’t at all honest or earned or even worth the hellish slog the audience made to get there. Anderson’s increasing quirkiness may divide viewers, but at least he’s capable of tapping into something inside himself to craft moments of genuine heartache. Baumbach’s recent films show no such ability to identify with real characters, nor a willingness to do anything other than throw a bunch of hateful people into a room and shake them up just to watch their lives unravel. His characters are real to the degree they allow Baumbach to act out again (and again and again) the kind of pseudo-literary turbulence to which he aspires; the people he gives life on screen are recognizably human but completely monstrous. His The Squid and the Whale mixed the genuine emotional angst brought on by a teen watching his parents divorce and suffering through the attendant identity crisis, and it was almost weighed down by Baumbach’s twin obsessions (sex and non sequiturs). But Margot at the Wedding is even duller. It commits a host of sins, chief among them the conflation of argument and honesty with Baumbach’s increasingly annoying habit of letting his characters speak in elliptical bursts of nonsensical pop psychobabble. Margot at the Wedding is efficiently made and technically sound, but it’s so downright unlikable that no joy can be derived from viewing it except for the visual cues in the final scene that the film is about to mercifully shuffle off into the void. Margot at the Wedding is one raw pile of vitriol and doubt and pain, anchored by a protagonist neither worthy of redemption nor at any great pains to seek it.
The film begins with a quick title screen with text the watery green of a poisoned ocean, as if warning of the nauseating ride ahead. Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her adolescent son, Claude (Zane Pais), are making their way via train to the New England coast for the wedding of Margot’s sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Margot is an outspoken control freak on the verge of divorcing her husband presumably because a two-way relationship is beyond her ability to manage. Claude adores her and desires her respect and attention, and it’s clear that Margot has become dependent on Claude’s needs as a way to both validate her as a person and to provide her with the kind of perfect mastery over another human that makes her tick. Claude, for instance, is beginning to grow a scraggly preteen mustache, but Margot makes him dye it blonde; the onset of puberty has caused him to smell, but Margot refuses to buy him deodorant because she claims it causes cancer. Her deep need to keep Claude imprisoned in an eternal childhood where he forever needs his mother’s love and advice is painful, and more than a little heartbreaking, but Baumbach never builds an ounce of compassion in the viewer for Margot. She is more than just unlikable; she is intolerable. She is consistently aloof, and her expressions of love for Claude are buried in the kind of manipulative, passive-aggressive barbs that are meant to hurt him for simply wanting to be close to her. When she tells him at one point, “I can see how much you’ve changed,” she doesn’t mean it as a compliment on his burgeoning manhood but as an attack on his willingness to change without her permission.
Margot and Claude arrive at Pauline’s, the house where the girls grew up, and the family dynamic only becomes more strained and unbelievable as the week progresses. Pauline’s fiancé, Malcolm (Jack Black), is the sort of unemployed lout Margot feared he would be, and she immediately begins to undermine his and Pauline’s relationship. “He’s the kind of guy we rejected when we were 16,” Margot tells her sister, again signaling her desire to both control the fate of everyone around her and to return to what (to her mind) was an easier time. Pauline is a model of restraint and maturity during the week, doing her best to tolerate her sister; they love each other with the kind of resigned boredom that can only come with the harsh realization that no amount of hatred will break the chains of family, and as such, Pauline and Margot are pushed to the limit just trying to survive in each other’s presence. Is there a degree of truth to this? It’s possible; Baumbach subscribes to the school of storytelling that collecting your worst memories and then pushing them to an extreme counts as something deep and truthful, and it’s certainly nothing new to realize that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. But it’s important to understand just what Baumbach is doing here: He’s not just putting people into painful situations, but he is making those people impossible to care about.
I’m throwing around the word “likeability” and its forms an awful lot, and I should probably here point out that I don’t necessarily mean the kind of warm fuzzies you feel when, say, the dashing hero comes to the rescue of the magical girl from the stars. No, in broader terms, you have to be able to connect with the story and its players on any number of non-negative gut levels, from love to like to curiosity or any of the hundred others. There needs to be something compelling about the character, and doubly so if the writer-director is going to do his damnedest to make you hate them the way Baumbach seems to take a perverse delight in trussing up Margot for the viewers’ horrific judgment. The best stories are inevitably the ones about pain, and love, and a loss of some great imagined innocence, but the reasons those stories work so well is that their authors created characters with hearts and souls, characters with whom the viewer or reader could identify in some way and thus commit to following for the length of a film or a novel. Hell, even Michael Corleone had a spark of humanity to begin with (not to mention the benefit of an actual character arc, as opposed to Baumbach’s haphazard, plotless story lines). But there is no one in Margot at the Wedding worth caring about; the most likable characters are simply the least detestable.
Like The Squid and the Whale, the duration of Margot at the Wedding unfolds in a series of choppy scenes sandwiched together to form something resembling a plot that’s actually nothing more than a series of pitiful vignettes strung together by the presence of the same characters. Claude does some low-level flirting with his cousin and the babysitter (Halley Feiffer), while Margot drinks a lot of wine and does her damnedest to break up the wedding before it happens. The conversations come out of nowhere and lead the same place, and Baumbach is still fascinated by frustrated sexuality at all ages: Margot masturbates to no avail on her first night in the house, presumably because this seemed like an emotionally complex scene to put in a screenplay. There’s also the twofer Baumbach scores later in the film with a random conversation about self-abuse: While standing at the bus station, Claude abruptly says to Margot, “I masturbated last night. When everyone was asleep, I went into the bathroom and did it.” Margot waits a moment before blandly replying, “You don’t need to tell me things like that, sweetie.” It’s unclear if this is supposed to be Claude’s last-ditch attempt to grab his mother’s attention, but it still plays like something Baumbach figured would sound smart and quirky and “honest” but that in execution falls flat. It’s not funny, or even revealing; it’s just boring.
Cinematographer Harris Savides, whose use of light and shadow was so wonderful in Zodiac, uses mostly natural light to shoot the scenes, giving them a muddy, unfocused feeling that uncomfortably mirrors the emotional funhouse the characters are wandering through. The blacks aren’t black but murky, noisy grays, and I found myself unconsciously squinting at the screen to try and make out some of the images. In the middle of all this torturous but ultimately pointless bickering, only Malcolm, not an official member of the family, stands out as someone remotely warm. He senses something is deeply wrong with Margot but lacks the ability to explain it to Pauline; the closest he comes is when he says to Pauline while they’re fighting, “The problem is not out there, it’s sleeping in my studio. … It’s Margot.” Black is more toned-down here than ever before, but he’s still somehow sweet and easygoing, and if any of the characters show moments or hints of relatability, it’s Malcolm. Compared with the rest of Baumbach’s solipsistic and self-destructive little tribe, he’s a god.
The ultimate failure of Margot at the Wedding is not its repulsive characters or the way it dares the viewer to find someone worth rallying for, but the fact that Baumbach is capable of so much more. Baumbach is far from untalented, and he’s demonstrated in the past that he’s capable of marrying both sharp insights about human behavior with characters who engage the viewer and earn their trust, sympathy, or respect. And that’s a necessary thing to do. Without that vital and overlooked step, Margot at the Wedding will never be a film worth watching or remembering.
Daniel Carlson is the managing editor of Pajiba and a low-level employee at a Hollywood industry magazine. You can visit his blog, Slowly Going Bald.
This Christmas | | Pajiba Love 11/26/07
Comments
I guess I'm with you on this; I don't understand why we need movies like this. What are they for?
Posted by: Mella at November 26, 2007 2:10 PM
At some point someone is going to quote you as saying Jack Black was a god.
Posted by: Scarlett at November 26, 2007 2:36 PM
"The Life Aquatic was Anderson's first film to have a thoroughly unlikable protagonist whose supposed moment of existential revelation wasn't at all honest or earned or even worth the hellish slog the audience made to get there."
THANK you!! That absolutely encapsulates my feelings about that film. I should probably write it down, so I can stop saying things like "Oh god, I haaaated that movie!", which is about all I can muster before I start sputtering with frustration. Which is not very helpful.
I do also turn people's attention to Cate Blanchett, who absolutely SUCKED in that movie. I wanted to wring her neck everytime she started to talk.
Posted by: Loob at November 26, 2007 2:50 PM
When I saw that still I thought it was an ad for feminine products.
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at November 26, 2007 2:52 PM
Hm...after reading the review, I'm not sure if I should see the film or not. I don't know if Daniel and I have the same definition of likable. I love really dark films with characters who aren't necessarily likable, especially if the acting is good. I loved, "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and "Requiem for a Dream" for example. I thought both those films were amazing. So...would I like this film? Heck, I even liked Inland Empire...and that was...a strange film.
I suppose I should take away from the review that likable characters aside, the film wasn't well constructed narratively? How was the acting? I really like Jennifer Jason Leigh and Nicole Kidman...was their acting good? Is the issue of not having likable characters a reviewer preference, or is the whole film itself lacking in writing, direction, acting, concept?
After reading the review what I'm not certain of, is this a well made film with great acting and a dark script full of supremely unlikable people that I would like, or a badly put together film?
Posted by: trooper6 at November 26, 2007 2:53 PM
trooper6: I suggest you rent "The Squid and the Whale" if you haven't already seen it. If my impression of Daniel's review is correct, "Margot at the Wedding" follows in a very similar vein to the director's previous film. So if you like TSATW then you'll probably enjoy "Margot".
And I wouldn't necessary categorize either film as dark or strange, not in the same way you seem to infer from your choice of examples. I would call Baumbach's work bleak realism and his characters tend to be remorseless egotists.
Probably because I am a heartless cynical bitch, I throughly enjoyed "The Squid and the Whale". I'm one of those delightful weirdos who finds the pain and awkwardness of life amusing.
In addition to entertainment of the masochistic kind, it does sounds like this movie offers some great practical tips on how NOT to be a mother to my son in his adolescent years.
Posted by: Alabamapink at November 26, 2007 3:22 PM
Noam has his moments. I though The Squid and the Whale was quite well done, especially the end. It was painful to watch though, especially if you're the child of divorced parents. The divorce in the film was slightly better than my own parents divorce though. Kicking and Screaming was also great too. I'm not surprised Noam's descending into emotional heavy-handedness and unnecceary non-sequitrs and sexual innuendos. Wes also tends to do that, but he usually prefers quirky to overly doing the psycho babble...
Posted by: pj at November 26, 2007 3:31 PM
For the life of me I can't get the negative criticism of Life Aquatic because the protagonist is "unlikable." Where is it written that Zissou had to be likable.
It was the journey and in the end he did something in the name/as tribute to his friend and took on a son that wasn't even his.
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at November 26, 2007 3:52 PM
Daniel, I suspect that it is no fault of your own, but such a dreary movie has made an even drearier movie review. Still, I thank you for sacrificing a few precious hours watching this so none of use have to. I loved "kicking and screaming," so it's a shame to see Baumbach wallowing in such emotional turpitude. Blech.
Posted by: AllGussiedUp at November 26, 2007 3:59 PM
I saw this last night, and Daniel, I disagree. I think Claud, in confessing his masturbation, is trying to figure out the line of what is acceptable to share. And when Margot says that it isn't, I was thinking, god, poor kid, how the hell is he supposed to know he shouldn't share that?
There are a great many parents who treat their kids as equals, as their primary emotional support. Margot does this, and Claud is a clueless, at-sea teenage boy, and is just figuring out how much it is damaging him. And then when Margot does pull a "parent" stunt, when she sets a rule or leaves him out of something, it is terribly confusing because the rest of the time, they have been equals.
I don't think "Margot" is a "TSATW" - it is too unfocused, and perhaps throws us into it with too little explanation, but it is a fine film.
I am craving, CRAVING, someone to talk with me about the goddamn weather in this movie though!! Were they joking? It is clearly cold, and late fall, and then sometimes there are full foliage trees, and they swim in a pool. That lack of focus was distracting and amateur, any thoughts??
Posted by: portlandtables at November 26, 2007 4:19 PM
but...but...i liked the squid and the whale. *blush* i can't help it, i am too curious to not see this movie!
Posted by: smash at November 26, 2007 4:40 PM
darn, I was really looking forward to this movie. I like both NK and JJL. I found TSATW painful sometimes true. Not because of any flaw(in the film) but rather moments I felt the same way in life. I thought it captured that feeling of finally seeing your parents as "people" or really "people with issues". jmo
Posted by: 2manykids at November 26, 2007 5:32 PM
Thanks for the Patton Oswalt reference!
Posted by: Mimi at November 26, 2007 6:11 PM
I didn't like TSATW at all. I couldn't even get through it. The characters didn't hold my interest at all.
Posted by: Aldogg at November 26, 2007 8:04 PM
ummm...is it so hard to write out "the squid and the Whale"?anyways I am surprised you didn't comment on how strange Nicole Kidman looks in this film. All that natural light sure does expose the magnitude of her plastic surgery and botox.
Posted by: sophia at November 26, 2007 8:16 PM
Sophia: Kidman has surgically enhanced her way into freakishness.
Although I must say that she looks kind of right for the Golden Compass (must be the hyper-lighting in the fantasy setting). I can't wait to see what our Pajiba overlords will think of that one.
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at November 26, 2007 8:22 PM
I'm sure the movie feels intolerable. I always find it difficult to put up with smothering characters like than while sitting trapped in a dark theatre. But to be honest, I know someone very like Margot. And no, they aren't any more tolerable in real life either. But in real life situations you must deal with such a person regardless.
And maybe the point of the movie is that there are stories of humanity in which you can't find anyone worth rallying for. And he's showing those who surround such a person trying to navigate their influence.
I find it odd that some folks feel every movie MUST have characters that are likeable and worthy of redemption when clearly reality dictates that's not always the case. Maybe it's those characters that lack such traits that we fear because we see our own occasional nasty selves in them.
Of course, nobody wants to spend ten bucks to go through all of that. It's not pleasant.
Posted by: Clevelandchick at November 27, 2007 12:28 AM
With movies like The Squid and the Whale (which, for all its formal efficiency, I despised) or this new one (which I probably won't see), I don't really feel it's a lack of likable or redemptive characters that is at issue. Rather, I find such movies to be a violent assault on life itself. They are hermetically sealed little hells that add nothing original to our understanding of hell and are content to traffic in pointless laceration after pointless laceration. This kind of suicidal despair is, well, boring. I don't need my heart warmed or anything, but, seriously, what else can you show me?
Posted by: spf at November 27, 2007 2:51 AM
This sounds fucking HATEFUL. Not only the theme and story repulse me, but also the presence of Nicole Kidman (and, come to think of it, Jack Black) really indicates to me in flashing lights - AVOID! AVOID! AVOID! And I shall.
Pity JJ Leigh is in it. I love this woman. But even then - the cons far outweigh this one solitary pro...
I gorge myself on Preston Sturges's films these days and positively wallow in their sharp wit, humanity and sheer brilliance. This is cinema. I don't need (nor do I want to) to soil myself with Baumbach's pretencious misantropic twaddle. Fucking hack.
Thanks for the review, I enjoyed that.
Posted by: Toothed Varmint at November 27, 2007 3:50 AM
Just watched the trailer for this. Oh my, what a surpirse: Kidman whispers her way through another film. She makes everything she is in unwatchable...strained whispering does NOT equal good acting, missus!!
Posted by: Emily at November 27, 2007 7:55 AM
We saw it a few weeks ago at a SAG screening and had Q and A with Noah, Jennifer, and Jack Black.
My review:
1.) I got seriously motion sick.
2.) I fell asleep (so much so I didn't even know John Turturro was in the film)...However I don't even think he could bring this film up to par.
Posted by: Shea at November 27, 2007 1:51 PM
I haven't seen this yet, so I can't comment on this movie. But as a fan of The Squid and the Whale, I'm a bit taken aback at the vitriol you spewed against it for a good portion of this review. Now, is the Squid and the Whale a dark movie? Yes. Is it depressing? Oh god, of course. But it's also a realistic portrayal of people. And simply because no one is likable shouldn't mean it's a bad movie. Look at the Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, a film that Pajiba (I'm going to assume that all Pajiba reviewers actually sit around at a long table in a dark room and unanimously decide if a movie was good or not.) I'm not going to compare Sidney Lumet to Noah Baumbach, so no one jump on my ass for that. TSWTW and BTDKYD are film constituted of good actors playing terrible, terrible people. And Ethan Hawke plays the closest thing to a decent human being, but someone he doesn't seem any worse than any other character in The Squid and the Whale.
Now, I'm not saying that The Squid and the Whale has to be unanimously loved. Far from it, films were meant to meet different tastes. I just don't understand where all the anger is coming from. Yes, Pajiba is known for its' snark. I don't think Noah Baumbach is such a heralded director that he deserves to be knocked down so many pegs. I felt like the anger in this review was much better suited towards something a little bit more deserving.
(P.S. I feel like Life Aquatic gets a really bad bums rap. I have a feeling a lot of people choose not to like it because they're embarrassed because they love Wes Anderson completely. It's all for the sake of saying "I like Anderson, but not completely..." The Life Aquatic is a good movie in a great portfolio. It might not look as good in comparison, but as someone who saw it before the rest of the Wes Anderson films, it certainly stands on its own two legs.)
Posted by: Alex at November 27, 2007 4:30 PM
I don't know what this says about me, but I liked The Squid and the Whale and absolutely loathed Kicking and Screaming, which I found so utterly boring that 40 minutes into the film I still couldn't tell the characters apart.
Posted by: Lilly at November 27, 2007 5:43 PM
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I am going to. I really like Baumbach for Squid, Kicking, and Steve Ziszou.
I just wonder how many movie directors have done a movie just to have footage of Nicole Kidman's surgically refined perfection. On a completely different chord, I just saw the movie Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, and despite liking it, I couldn't help but crack up the first twenty times I saw Kidman talking with Robert Downey Jr.'s character once he was 'unmasked'. It was B-movie good, and not one you must stay in the room for every frame.
You can see the incisions as this movie has lots of Kidman close-ups. She still is quite gorgeous for someone who's crazy.
Posted by: Jackseppelin at November 27, 2007 6:11 PM
I have to say I disagree with this review - I saw Margot, and though I was frustrated by some gaps in story exposition, I found it to be really spot on in it's representation of the neurotic high-wire act of negotiating unpleasant family relationships.
Yes, Nicole Kidman's character is completely and utterly unlikeable - wielding sweet compliments and eviscerating insults in the same breath - but isn't that kind of refreshing? Not to be too cynical, but isn't that kind of what family is alot of the time? Tolerating people you can barely stand?
I thought the relationship between the two sisters was an incredible character study in opposition - you have the sister who feels the entitlement to say any thing she wants, and the other sister who withholds her criticisms for private moments, knowing knowing full well that she's the sane one.
If anything, I think this movie will alienate people because it's main characters are female. I think a lot of guys out there will blow this off as a bitchy chick flick. But I think those people are missing the fine lines and nuances of the inevitability of human nature.
I would compare this movie to another holiday-time family film - Home for the Holidays, though it's far more cutting in its mood.
Posted by: Gadabout at November 27, 2007 11:10 PM
You know, kind of like how you have to tolerate people who are posting for the first time on your site, and overestimate the line breaks in their html coding.
Posted by: Gadabout at November 27, 2007 11:16 PM
I couldn't disagree more with this review.
Can you honestly say that you've never known someone like Margot? Really?
I didn't think she was a monster at all, self-absorbed, passive-aggressive, self-destructive, bitchy, yes. But I had no problem sympathizing with her and cringing at the tragicness of her inability to have a relationship she doesn't poison. I totally recognize these qualities in myself and some of my own family and friends. She's not an evil person at heart, just aggressively insecure. Can you honestly say that you did not recognize this stuff in your own life, that none was relatable to you? And you can honestly say that you saw no thwarted humanity in Margot at all?
"Black is more toned-down here than ever before, but he's still somehow sweet and easygoing, and if any of the characters show moments or hints of relatability, it's Malcolm."
Your kidding right? Malcolm was ridiculously pathetic. The way Black cried in those scenes on the phone were the most embarrassing part of the movie. His overblown crying turned what could have been a nuanced character into a cartoon we were ready to laugh at.
Posted by: poppy at November 28, 2007 10:51 AM
I think the reviewer is trying to find some speck of humanity in these characters. Some softness, something empathatic, which is what creates the internal conflict we all enjoy watching a good actor express. But sometimes it doesnt happen that way. Some people are just plain unlikeable, they have no inner conflict. Some people dont know how to be people. And they have no idea how messed up they are.
I was really intetested in the sister dynamic in this movie. How did Margot turn out so freakish, and her sister more or less well adjusted? What happened to Margot to make her that way? Noah doesnt explain it, but he doesnt have to. Characters dont have to be likeable to be interesting. I didnt think this movie was boring at all. And I LOVED The squid and the Whale, but my parents are divorced and many parts were so painfully true. I think noah focuses on what happens to someone and the people around them when a person becomes so completely self absorbed they cant see anything but themselves. They become Margot. It happens.
Posted by: Melissa at November 29, 2007 9:04 PM
I usually agree with the reviews here, or at least understand where they're coming from.
But Daniel is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Posted by: filmsoncon at November 30, 2007 9:30 PM
I dont think its Daniel Carlson fault. In fact he may have just done too good of a job. But this is the first review on Pajiba I didnt finish reading. Not only did I not like the movie as Mr. Carlson described it, I didnt even want to hear more about it.
Posted by: ericd at December 1, 2007 10:03 PM
The pivotal moment of this film was during the fight between the two sisters, when Pauline finally confronts Margot with all her lies, betrayals and absolutely shitty behavior. Pauline shouts out at her, "Borderline personality disorder!"
Herewith, if I may, I present you BPD/Margot at the wedding:
# Relationship problems
# Inability to manage their emotions
# Sudden, intense rapid or frequent mood changes
# Anxiety
# Love - Hate relationships. Viewing others by extremes - All good / All bad without nuance, black and white thinking
# Feeling " victimised ", unable to accept responsability for themselves
# Feeling depressed, sad or empty
# Frequent and or unpredictable outbursts of anger (whether acted-out or not)
# Unstable self image
# Fear of abandonment
# Impulsive self destructive behaviors with addictions like Bulimia, Unsafe sex, Anorexia, Spending, Alcohol, Road rage, Drug or Medication abuse, ...
# Rage attacks
# Suicide attempts or self-injury such as cutting, burning, scratching,...
Now what I want to know is, what was with those 'Deliverance' neighbors, the Voglers, and that pig carcass flipping around the house?!
Oh, and I did sort of like the movie. But I'm a psych nurse, so makes sense.
Posted by: devildoggie at December 2, 2007 9:49 PM
A quirky indie soundtrack would have helped.
I don't know about everyone else but I think there's a BIG DIFFERENCE between "unpleasant family relationships," and dealing with someone who is unable "to have a relationship she doesn't poison."
Posted by: Fabiola Thing at February 23, 2008 11:34 AM