FEBRUARY 15, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 2

Currently, in America, there exists a debate regarding what constitutes a family. Regardless of personal beliefs, everyone is aware that average “the American family” no longer resembles the Cleavers or the Brady Bunch. Today the average American family probably closer resembles the family of Margot, titular character in Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding. Baumbach’s film intricately illustrates how painful and ugly family can get. The movie is frequently discomforting- exquisitely so, in fact, and yet never for a moment less than fascinating.

As the title suggests, the film centers around Margot, played by Nicole Kidman, a well-known writer who is traveling to her childhood home for the wedding of her sister, Pauline, played Jennifer Jason Leigh. With her Oedipally confused son Claude (Zane Pais) tucked by her side, Margot meets her soon-to-be brother-in-law, the slovenly, but jovial, Malcolm (Jack Black). Margot is almost instantly repulsed by her sister’s choice in mate, someone she feels is like “guys we would have rejected when we were 16.” Malcolm is overweight, crude and has a moustache. Her distaste is apparent, and she wastes no time in making it known. In every scene, every situation, Margot manages to make herself the focus, though she doesn’t usually have to try very hard. With deft precision she descends on and manipulates every one around her until she manages to wedge herself between Pauline and Malcolm, end her own marriage and emotionally abuse her adolescent son. As her own insecurities haunt her with increasing severity, Margot drags her family down the emotional hurricane with her.

Nearly every character in this film is unlikable, and that’s a large part of what makes it deliciously fascinating to watch. A thoroughly unattractive person, Margot’s selfishness makes her both nauseatingly self-righteous and, at the same time, tragically insecure. As she gives an interview on her newest novel in a local bookshop, a dose of personal truth drives her farther into her own neuroses. Her interviewer, coincidentally also the man with whom she has been having an affair, suggests that her book’s tyrannical and abusive patriarch is, in fact, a representation of Margot herself, the truth of the statement heightens her insecurities. Having been made to feel vulnerable, Margot reacts by becoming more venomous to everyone in her vicinity. She holds her family at arms length so they never truly know her, but holds them so tight that they can never escape her toxic grip.

Nicole Kidman is so committed to each scene, that it is easy to forget she’s the actress behind each snarl and every vicious comment. It is refreshing to see Kidman, following a stint of one-dimensional and stereotypical characters, absolutely devote herself to such a flawed and multi-facetted character. This is a Nicole Kidman unseen by audiences before, a transformative performance beyond the power of any prosthetic nose. The performance is painfully sincere, with all of Margot’s scars and scabs intact and on display. Even in her scenes of vulnerability, Margot is as equally ugly as she is sympathetic. In a scene where she is ferociously humping her own arm, in an attempt at a physical release from her strained relationships, her frustration is agonizingly apparent She’s not just masturbating, it’s as though she’s attacking herself. Her frustrations have clouded her so thoroughly that she’s completely lost the reason for why she’s doing what she is doing: without that reason Margot is just going through the motions, with increasing anger. Somehow, though, it’s hard to really empathize with her because of the fact that she is in a hole created by her own hands. It wouldn’t have been hard for Kidman and Baumbach to make Margot softer, more likable, but she would not have been nearly as interesting. The fact that she is so unapologetically despicable is what makes her so intriguing.

The other characters in the film, who alone might have been decent people, are nearly intolerable because of Margot’s pressence. They’re not bad people, just weak people, and their dependence on Margot is almost excruciating at points. Leigh’s Pauline is tragically incapable of moving beyond her past. She still lives in the house she grew up in, and she is still unable to stand up to her bully of an older sister. Whether she agrees with Margot or not, Pauline cannot help but to defer to her opinions. Margot’s son, Claude, is an adolescent boy so hopelessly co-dependant on his mother that it is uncomfortable, and at times acutely inappropriate. Claude resents his mother for her cruelty, and yet never stops looking for her approval. Black’s Malcolm is, perhaps, the most pathetic of these characters. He is a man devoid of ambition or self-control. He has no real job, he cheats on his fiancé with their underage babysitter and he cannot stand up to Margot. Although he is seemingly the most aware of Margot’s manipulation, he never confronts her about it. He allows her to mentally and emotionally abuse his family, while he complains about it when she isn’t around. Margot drives him and Pauline apart, not because they’re a bad match (which they are), but because she wants to control Pauline. Even as he’s aware of this, Malcolm does little less than bitch to Pauline about it.

In the opening scene of the film Margot tells Claude that Pauline is probably her best friend, and she is completely sincere in saying so. As the film ends, Margot is again talking to Claude; this time scoffing that Pauline had called Margot her closest friend. Here, Baumbach perfectly bookends the theme of his film. Margot keeps those around her in a toxic cycle, only broken by removing Margot from the equation. The only character in the film that seems even remotely sane is one who’s hardly in it. Played by John Turturro, Margot’s husband Jim is compassionate and kind, making it easy to understand why she doesn’t like him. She can’t tear him down, and that makes her feel like a bad person. Margot can’t stand to be around someone nice, because it makes her aware of how terrible she really is, and of course, she blames him for it.

Though it is at many points uncomfortable, Noah Baumbach’s look at how one person can poison a whole family is emotionally raw, and believable. The film is, at its core, a story about sisters both grasping for a lost childhood bond, which may have never really existed in the first place. When Margot decides to climb her tree, as she had done so many times as a child, she reaches the top only to realize she has no way of getting down. Arriving at Pauline’s wedding, Margot realizes she’s at the same dead end she always comes to with her family. Pauline finally defies Margot by deciding to give Malcolm a second chance. Exiting to greet the family members shunned by Margot, the audience gets the distinct impression that Margot doesn’t like them because she can’t control them. As she and Claude leave town, Margot has, in her own way, finally admitted she needs Claude as much as he needs her, Oedipal issues be damned. He’s the only one who still needs her, and she clings to that like the poisonous leech she is.