My first impression of Margot at the Wedding (which, admittedly, may change after I see it a second time at the New York Film Festival) is that Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to The Squid and the Whale is an intermittently fascinating exercise that barely holds together as a film. It plays as if Baumbach cut together a footage reel of master-class actors (plus Jack Black, who, perhaps emboldened by the company, somehow gives the finest performance of his career) rehearsing without a script. The characters are half-formed and/or disposed of unceremoniously, the themes are haphazardly integrated, the emotional arc is virtually non-existent.
And yet, some of the performances show flashes of magic, so much so that for all its faults, it’s not entirely dismissable.
It did look good on paper, didn’t it? Nicole Kidman plays Margot, a successful short story writer/prolific drinker who has developed a kind of perfect celebrity-literary scam: she projects her own self-loathing outward, and then drains the frustrations of her friends and family directly onto the pages of the New Yorker. It’s not entirely clear why Margot’s husband (John Turturro), son (Zane Pais) and sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is married to the director) keep letting her get away with this, but in the film’s best scene, her sometime-lover very publicly dresses her down for the same.
The film takes place in and around Margot’s childhood home on the New England waterfront, where her sister Pauline (Leigh) is living with her unlikely fiance, Malcolm (Black). Pauline seems to be some kind of new age philosophy teacher; Malcolm’s occupation apparently extends to drawing dirty pictures and helping out with man tasks around the property. In any case, no one seems to have to work over the course of a foggy week ahead of Pauline and Malcolm’s wedding. This gives Margot ample time to work two parallel, chardonnay-soaked plots: first she’ll try to exchange her husband for an old boyfriend, then she’ll break up her sister’s impending marriage.
There’s not a bad performance in the film, but Kidman is given the most to do. Margot is sprinkled with strange diversions into non-sequitor shock, most of which involve a family of unpleasant neighbors, and all of which give the impression that Baumbach needs to kill narrative time in order to strenuously prevent his characters from thinking about anything but their own immediate emotional states. With all these helpless solipsists running around within arms reach of a practiced emotional predator, Margot might be most successfully contextualized as a kind of monster movie filmed from the unstable point of view of the victims. Stalking through the country house, the title character picks them off one-by-one like Godzilla snacking his way through the city.
Margot’s potential fascination as a character study is wrecked primarily by frenetic editing. The extreme jump-cutting doesn’t make Margot feel like Godardian–it makes it feel like a mistakenly-leaked rough cut. Baumbach’s stars have strong chemistry and seem to be doing interesting work, but you can barely tell because Baumbach is constantly cutting away from them. The pacing is most fatal in an early scene in which Margot and Pauline meet for the first time in years and immediately fall into a passive-aggressive argument; Kidman and Leigh are certainly doing enough to hold the viewer’s attention, but as if lacking confidence in his actresses to bring the pyrotechnics, Baumbach insists on cutting back and forth between them. As the film moves along, the cuts feel less conspicuous, but the pacing continues to be a formidable barrier to engagement.
I’m determined to see Margot again, because I like Black, Leigh and Kidman in it so much that I’m hoping I just missed (or misinterpreted) something the first time around. That kind of thing happens at festivals sometimes, when you’re seeing five films a day on four hours of sleep. If that is the case, I’ll certainly admit my mistake.
8 Comments
I couldn’t help but notice…many of the same elements that seem to endear “mumblecore” videos to you (and others) are used to point out shortcomings of this film. These include:
“[a] fascinating exercise that barely holds together as a film”
“cut together a footage reel of master-class actors…rehearsing without a script”
“characters are half-formed and/or disposed of unceremoniously, the themes are haphazardly integrated, the emotional arc is virtually non-existent”
To a layperson (non-critic, though active filmmaker) it seems like you are applying a double-standard to your criticism. Why should Baumbach’s film be held to such high standards (story, character development, shot selection, etc.) when other recent films are given a pass?
However, I think my point is best summed up when you refer to Baumbach’s need “to kill narrative time in order to strenuously prevent his characters from thinking about anything but their own immediate emotional states” and then again referring to them as “these helpless solipsists.” If I’m not mistaken, isn’t that exactly for what and about whom the mumblecore movies exist?
I’m not trying to start trouble here…I’m just wondering why one works for you and the other doesn’t. Are we supposed to embrace the process and not the product (i.e. Is John Cage’s 4′33″ better than four and a half minutes of “unprocessed” silence?)
Thanks for the great coverage from Telluride! Sounds like we have some good stuff to look forward to this fall…
p.s. In the above comment, I didn’t mean to differentiate between “videos” and “films” as if one is lesser than the other. I laud the efforts of all filmmakers regardless of the medium they employ to tell their stories. I just realized that portion of the comment might be misinterpreted and viewed in a negative light. That wasn’t my intention.
I see your point, but for me, it’s a question of intention. Margot at the Wedding is a scripted film, and the editing in particular works against the script and the performances, to the point where the film is essentially emotionally static. Some of the “mumblecore” films do use similar techniques and are about similar subjects, but the good ones are more emotionally satisfying, in part because their filmmakers more successfully marry form and content. I also wouldn’t say that any of the so-called M-core filmmakers employ unnecessary shock to the extent that Baumbach does it here.
Thanks for replying. It’s quite difficult for me to respond to an artist’s intent separate from his or her result (I prefer to evaluate each work as a self-contained whole). I know that raises an immediate question about the importance of context and culture in criticism, and I will admit there are definite exceptions (but that may be a topic for another post). I will say I much prefer an ambitious failure to an emotionally leaden, technical success, and that’s a major reason I love independently-produced films (also because they are not subject to the marketplace, yet still part of the popular culture). I agree with your sense of overall satisfaction derived from the successful integration of form and content (or intention and result), though sometimes that is quite different than emotional satisfaction…
Having not seen “Margot…” I cannot comment on the unecessary shocks you are referring to, but would ask if you thought some of the frank (often gratuitous) depictions of sexuality in the M-core films (particularly Swanberg’s) don’t fulfill a similar purpose (the shower masturbation scene in “Kissing on the Mouth” comes to mind) as needlessly distracting from the narrative?
I usually don’t comment on blogs, so this now seems a bit long-winded…probably would be a great conversation to have over a beer, but since I live in Seattle, that’s not likely to happen.
Last question: How are you able to get to all of these great festivals? Are you writing for a publication and they are paying your way or do you just have a very flexible day job?
Have fun in Toronto!
I would call MARGOT an emotionally leaden, technical failure.
I’ve gone back and forth on the sexuality in KISSING since first seeing it a couple of years ago. I would agree that there is a shock value element there, but again, you have to look at intention. That was the first film of a 23-year-old filmmaker who was trying to reflect his own life. I think some of that film’s sex scenes are more successfully integrated into the narrative than others, but even the masturbation scene in that film doesn’t seem as out of place as the masturbation scene in MARGOT.
And yes, I write for a publication that pays my way to festivals — you’re reading it!
I meant to add a line in the above comment about how Noah Baumbach is a 40-something filmmaker with several films and an Oscar nomination under his belt, and thus should be somewhat more mature. But it’s been a long day, and I forgot.
Great blog conversation! Not used to the protocols and etiquette, but this seems like a good place to put this one to rest (for me). Looking forward to your Toronto posts!
I recently saw this movie at the Telluride film festival. I really liked this movie in its own twisted, demonic kind of way. This movie reminds me of my family (only SOME parts) and to see Nicole as a dysfunctional lunatic, made me really really enjoy this movie!
http://www.margotatthewedding.com