Monday 25 July 2011

Margot at the wedding (2007) - View

vFound out this week during to much "Wes Andersoning" that Noah Baumbach was a co writer on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I also enjoyed his directing style after watching The Squid and the Whale. So I decided to give another film he has directed a look see.


I was not expecting much due to a certain Mr. Jack Black acting in it. He gets on my nerves. This came to fruition but yet was not the main reason behind me disliking the film. The film starts off with Margot heading to her sisters wedding with her son. She is of course running away from her husband and it just so happens her sister is getting married near to where her co-author and ex-boyfriend lives. Her sister Pauline (Noah Baumbachs partner in real life) is marrying Malcolm (Jack Black with a mustache), a useless waste of space style artist with a load of 'problems' like everyone else in the film. There is a tree and a weird family next door and Margo's son, Claude falls in love with the babysitter. There is a gay couple who have an autistic son and there are family arguments regarding this. The film is really just awkward scene after awkward scene. Its not really enjoyable at all and feels like some bizarre alternative reality. I reckon its just representing a messed up family.

My problem is though that Noah Baumbach only makes films about messed up families. In Margot at the wedding, we get a whole bunch of messed up people all messing each other up a bit more. The film in places makes very little sense and some scenes are just unnecessary and completely pointless yet very provocative and creepy. A large proportion of the dialogue is unnatural and bizarre leaving you feel sorry for Noah Baumbach if this is some sort of child hood life reenacted.

His other directed film I have seen The Squid and the Whale touches on similar family relations and bizarreness. This lead me on to then even analyze The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou which whole plot revolves around Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) being Steve Zissou's (Bill Murray) lost son. Another family relations mess up.

I do not mind directors touching on their own experience, it can make scenes more believable or make stories funnier. When it comes to a director just rehashing the same story in a number of various locations however, it gets a bit tiresome.


I dread to think what Madagascar 3 is going to be like with Noah Baumbach working on the screenplay. Rumour has it that Alex the Lion and Marty the Zebra have the same dad. Its a roller coaster of emotions with numerous mentions of self gratification and random nods to affairs. Kids are gona love it.

Lets give Margot at the wedding a solid 0.5/5 .

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