Margot at the Wedding (2007)

Directed by Noah Baumbach. Starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, Zane Pais, Ciarán Hinds, Flora Cross, Halley Feiffer, John Turturro, Seth Barrish. [R]

This languid, inhospitable drama of dysfunction finds Baumbach testing the deep waters of Rohmer, Bergman, Chekhov, etc. with mixed results. There are high volumes of bile, condescension, and resentment in these unpleasant characters, but almost nothing in the way of perceptive insight or cathartic resolution. The shoddy “naturalistic” camerawork is ugly enough to make it hard to even tell apart neurotic sisters Kidman and Leigh at a glance, and they come with knives out but no strategy. The latter is set to marry a man (Black) Kidman doesn’t approve of, but since Kidman’s so busy screwing up her kid (Pais), she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. Kidman and especially Leigh find the dramatic buoys in the indistinct characterizations—they’re slightly more plausible and interesting than they should be—but it’s hard to sink into a bitter story populated by such dour, guarded individuals (even Black, who provides some muted comic relief at a few junctures, is concealing an unsavory secret). Final scene is a misfire of emotional confusion, but I guess that makes it fitting. Debuted at Telluride.

49/100