Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. Fabfunk’s been an occasional contributor for a long time, and it’s always nice to hear from him, especially when he’s weighing in on a film I want to see as much as I want to see this one. Great cast. Interesting writer/director. Sounds good to me. So how was it, Fabfunk?
I caught a NYC screening of Noah Baumbach’s latest, “Margot At The Wedding”. I have to preface my comments with the suggestion that, if you haven’t seen “The Squid And The Whale”, you’re probably wasting your life away (and you probably paid money to watch “Transformers”, you philistine) and you should really do so. Baumbach came up in the mid-nineties amongst the group of intellectual upper-class film chroniclers that were subsequently steamrolled by the quirk machine at Sundance that ignored Whit Stillman and his ilk in favor of eggheads like Ed Burns. As a result, Baumbach’s earlier films, dealing with youthful insecurity and post-college jitters, have only now been rediscovered now that he’s altered his perspective for “Whale”, arguably his very bets effort. He continues to move away from snarky, pop-culture-centric youth characters with this latest effort, an intimate family comedy drama that mines serious dramatic heft out of often bitingly funny situations. Baumbach’s later films seem to be evoking Cassavetes, as he keeps the action close to a single ocean-side house, leaving the actors plenty of room to create very real, troubled characters. Nicole Kidman is the Margot of the title, a sheltered, xenophobic New England writer who has regurgitated the most personal elements of her family’s life into a series of successful short stories. She’s venturing out to see her layabout sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason-Leigh, really great), who’s getting married again, this time to an unemployed slob (Jack Black- think Barry from “High Fidelity” ten years later). Tension arises from the fact that lax mom Margot is a chatterbox, Pauline is insecure and not happy about the arrangement, and slob Malcolm is an all-out failure at life. Like “Squid”, however, this is mostly told through the eyes of Margot’s mop-topped adolescent son, and as a result, like “Squid”, the scenes of domestic arguments, boiling resentments and casual sex. I don’t know the young actor, but he appears to be an amateur, and as such is really natural and believable. He’s starting to come of age and he’s getting a crash course on mid-life puberty thanks to these reckless siblings. At the same time, he lusts for the teen-aged babysitter and, coming from more cushy environments, fears the rural, meanspirited next-door neighbors. “Margot At The Wedding” really gains it’s momentum from the intimacy, due to the claustrophobic locations, as well as the solid performances. Particularly surprising is Jack Black- I never knew he had this in him. Regretfully, people at my screening were laughing at him. While elements of his character are tragicomic, he never succumbs to his usual tics (no “shhhhhhhhhhe-de-de-de-de-de” musical noises), and I found him very affecting. The heavy lifting is left to Kidman, of course, but Leigh has the toughest character, as she is a miasma of failed decisions and regret. The kid’s great, too- very real stuff, no surprise for anyone who remembers how great owen Kline was in (yes, again) “The Squid And The Whale”. It’s not going to rub some people the right way- it’s really a bit darker and more austere than “Whale” and these characters never truly become likeable. But it’s a really great character piece, very involving, very funny and really emotionally shattering. Oh, also, Jack Black shows his ass. While talking about his scrotum. After “Eastern Promises”, I’m kind of tired of A-List scrote, but whatever. It’s me, Fabfunk.
