{"id":670,"date":"2008-03-01T22:16:59","date_gmt":"2008-03-02T03:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/01\/margot-at-the-wedding\/"},"modified":"2022-10-27T11:47:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T15:47:35","slug":"margot-at-the-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/margot-at-the-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I very much loved writer\/director Noah Baumbach<\/a>‘s previous film The Squid and The Whale<\/em>, blessed with an excellent script and superb performances all around (especially by the versatile Jeff Daniels – heartbreaking in Pleasantville<\/em>, and capable of humanizing no less an icon than George Washington in The Crossing<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margot at the Wedding<\/em> features another dysfunctional family, but so spectacularly so that the characters didn’t seem recognizably human to me. I don’t think the problem is as simple as merely identifying with the particulars of their lives (abusive father, celebrity lifestyle, etc.), for I also had little in common with the family in The Squid and The Whale<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
It’s like De Palma’s Sisters meets Allen’s Interiors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Margot (Nicole Kidman<\/a>) brings her son to her family home for her sister’s Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh<\/a>) wedding to layabout Malcolm (Jack Black<\/a>). Pauline is the sole family member insecure Margot can physically face, which she can only manage through passive aggressive games asserting her superiority. We barely glimpse a third sister and their mother, from whom Margot literally flees. They feud with the strangely savage neighbors, providing yet another set of characters for Margot to look down upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jennifer
Unlikely Jack Black Romantic Pairing (no. 845 in a series)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Margot’s favorite pastime is armchair psychoanalysis coupled with a kind of inverse hypochondria. Obsessed with detecting symptoms of mental illness in everyone around her (the irony being that she’s often correct), she fails to diagnose herself. She’s a fiction writer whose work bears more than a passing resemblance to her family’s history. Margot’s failure of imagination amounts to a kind of theft, and is a central theme of the movie. “How much of your work is autobiographical?” is no doubt a cutting question nearly every writer (including Noah Baumbach) hears at least once a day. Margot’s lover Dick (Ciar\u00e1n Hinds) even uses it as a weapon to publicly attack her. It is cruel, but in her case, accurate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I very much loved writer\/director Noah Baumbach‘s previous film The Squid and The Whale, blessed with an excellent script and superb performances all around (especially by the versatile Jeff Daniels – heartbreaking in Pleasantville, and capable of humanizing no less an icon than George Washington in The Crossing). Margot at the Wedding features another dysfunctional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2],"tags":[1121,1062,501,353,1120],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3-stars","category-movies","tag-ciaran-hinds","tag-jack-black","tag-jennifer-jason-leigh","tag-nicole-kidman","tag-noah-baumbach"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/margot-at-the-wedding-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-aO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5831,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-truman-show-is-a-true-gem\/","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":0},"title":"The Truman Show is a true gem","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"July 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A true gem. I think Peter Weir's The Truman Show is part of informal trilogy (with The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Man On the Moon) in which Jim Carrey found a way to channel his manic energy and rubber-face-pulling into dramatic roles, in films that were not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Jim Carrey in The Truman Show","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/truman-show.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/truman-show.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/truman-show.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/truman-show.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/truman-show.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5130,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/brian-de-palma-2015-movie-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":1},"title":"Brian De Palma looks back over his career in the documentary ‘De Palma’","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"September 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Brian De Palma is an under-celebrated director, responsible for some of the most stunning sequences in American cinema. Just to name four personal favorites of mine: the split-screen prom massacre in Carrie, the Langley heist sequence in Mission: Impossible, the Grand Central Station steadycam chase in Carlito's Way, and even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"De Palma","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/de-palma.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/de-palma.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/de-palma.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/de-palma.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/de-palma.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":132,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/daily-dork-report-for-january-27-2006\/","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":2},"title":"Daily Dork Report for January 27, 2006","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"January 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow. 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I guess this is Progress (no longer online: namco.com\/games\/pacmanworld3). \"It's tiny, it lives in acid and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Dork Report"","block_context":{"text":"The Dork Report","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/dork-report\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Dork Report","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1682,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/pride-glory\/","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":3},"title":"There’s a Corruption in the Force in Gavin O’Connor’s Pride and Glory","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"March 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Pride and Glory was one of the last New Line Cinema productions made while still a semi-autonomous company, before being eviscerated by parent company Warner Bros. in 2008. 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