Margot At The Wedding

Synopsis: The story of Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son Claude (Zane Pais), who visit Margot’s sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Pauline is marrying the unimpressive Malcolm (Jack Black). The children look on as dysfunctional people and relationships implode.

I’m not usually one for the first person – preferring the usual attempted omniscient aloofness of the armchair critic. But Baumbach’s two films require a more personal response. Revisiting my thoughts on his first film, The Squid and the Whale (2005), I thought it was extraordinary. An intimate, powerful, darkly comic story. Disappointingly, Margot strikes me as no more than ordinary.

Baumbach apparently drew on childhood experiences to illustrate Squid. To some extent, Margot revisits the themes and character types. There is Margot, the successful writer with a poisonous tongue. There is Pauline, the overshadowed family member trying to find her own place in the world. There are the children, left to suffer their dysfunctional parents. Margot’s son, Claude, is a quietly memorable character, buffeted by the shifting winds of his mother’s moods and manipulations. There is the beigeness of a time and place that modernity seems to have forsaken.

Squid told the story primarily from the perspective of the children. The emphasis shifts in Margot, with the orbiting camera making the audience an intimate observer of Margot’s self-obsession. Kidman carries the role well, with a touch of ethereal disconnection from the consequences of her actions. Leigh presents a terrific contrast, a counterweight to Kidman’s airiness.

A new element in the dysfunctional family is the prospective in-law, Malcolm (Jack Black). While Black is clearly earnestly devoted to the character, and is mostly successful with him, there are moments where the performance doesn’t ring entirely true. Another feature is the influence of outside forces: the wealthy friends, the bemused husband (an always welcome appearance from John Turturro), and the ‘American Gothic’ neighbours who insist that Pauline and Malcolm topple the tree that is meant to shade their wedding day.

Squid worked for me because it was a nuanced portrayal of a family caught in an epoch when introspection and selfishness was a symptom of larger social malaise. Margot has the introspection, selfishness and naturalistic performances but not much of the feeling of something bigger than the sum of its parts. While I wasn’t a fan of all of the humour in Squid, Margot could actually have done with a few more wry smiles.

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