Noah Baumbach's acerbic comedy starts with a primal scream
and ends with a befuddled, crushing look of resignation. Both belong to Claude,
a zombie of a teen who's heading to a family wedding with his selfish,
loathsome, neurotic
... more mother, Margot (Nicole Kidman, brilliantly grotesque). Both are
perfect reactions to the dysfunctional family dynamics played out during the 80
minutes in-between. As Baumbach showed in "The Squid and the Whale," family is a prison, and
here, in his even-better and nastier follow-up, it's one big, narcissistic,
cutthroat game, too. Margot and her nut-job of a sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh, scary) compare number of lovers, play
truth or dare with a tree, battle at swimming and driving, and in the best
croquet scene in film history, try to prove their human worth by hitting a ball
hard with a wooden mallet. Most of the games are mental, however ... except
nobody wins and, again as in "Squid," the real losers will be the children ...
and most likely their children's children and so on. "I haven't had that thing
yet where you realize that you're not the most important thing in the world,"
future brother-in-law Malcolm (Jack Black, perfect, pathetic, hilarious) says to Margot at
one point, referencing the pending birth of his child. "Anxious for that to
happen." Don't hold your breath ... not in Baumbach's world. I've now watched
"Margot" twice, and although I still think it's one of the year's greatest, most
honest character studies, I never want to see it again. I think that's perhaps
the best compliment you can give it. -- Dave McCoy
Hotmail
