by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B- Rated R 91 min
Writer/director Noah Baumbach created this screenplay as a dark satire of self-absorbed pseudo-intellectuals that spend their time whining about trivial concerns and psychoanalyzing each other. The problem with Baumbach’s well-written script is its characters. They are hard to care about, even though the stellar acting is first rate. Thank the movie gods that Jack Black brought some humor to this downer story.
Single mom Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son Claude (Zane Paris) decide to visit her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is getting married to Malcolm (Jack Black). Previously, the sisters were estranged, but Margot has an ulterior motive for making the trip. She wants to revive an old love affair with one of Pauline’s neighbors.
Indeed, Margot is a troublemaker who criticizes Pauline’s choice of a husband as not being good enough for her. The sisters are continually bickering, which waxes tedious right away. Margot dotes on her 13-year old son, Claude (the quintessential mommas-boy who hides behind his mom’s skirt). Malcolm is an unemployed writer– rough around the edges and says what he thinks. Pauline and Malcolm have a healthy sex life but seem to have little else in common. Pauline has a sweet daughter Ingrid who likes Margot’s son Claude, but he finds her annoying and stupid.
Putting these volatile personalities in one house for a weekend marriage in Pauline’s backyard was bound to stir-up a hornet’s nest of bad feelings and arguments. The sisters incessantly whine and complain about their lives and the mistakes they made. Malcolm can’t stand Margot, who gives him dirty looks. This underlying tension causes the characters to self-analyze their reasons for being there, especially Pauline, who finds out that Malcolm had an affair with a neighbor’s 19-year old daughter.
Baumbach’s idea, which was to combine these characters into a gumbo of emotional turmoil, was interesting but it reeks of pretension and manipulation. Cinematographer Anne Ross was going for a noirish dark look in many of her shots, which, to the viewer, looks like black screen with voices. It’s one thing to use dark shadows but quite another to have no light whatsoever.
Nicole Kidman portrays her neurosis convincingly well as Margot, the nasty bitch. Jennifer Jason Leigh effectively made Pauline a mass of psychological problems and self doubt. These she-devils will never be happy especially being together for any length of time. The hellish siblings bring out the worst in each other.
Clearly, Baumbach was satirizing these snitty New York intellectual types with a dark overview. Only Jack Black found the comedy in this cauldron of witches brew. He plays Malcolm tongue-in-cheek, and consequently, gives the story some redeeming value. His tearful confession of infidelity is hilarious while he’s holding a chain saw.
No viewer would want to be around these bitchy sisters, especially after spending their holidays with equally bitchy family in their own homes. Being trapped in that house with Pauline and Margot would be torture. In some ways, it’s fascinating to watch this dysfunctional family dig themselves into a deep hole, from which they seem to thrive, wallowing in their depression and misery. The movie trailer implies this is a lighthearted comedy. Don’t be fooled, its comedy is so dark, it’s not funny at all. You will sigh with relief when it’s over.
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