Writer/director Noah Baumbach follows up his 2005 Oscar nominated picture The Squid and the Whale with another brutally honest dissection of family life. Margot at the Wedding examines issues of sibling rivalry and the dysfunctional family, focusing around the story of two estranged sisters, Margot (Nicole Kidman) and Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

After years of cold shoulders Pauline reaches out to Margot in an attempt to settle their differences and invites her up to Long Island for her imminent wedding. Despite Margot’s recent rise to fame as an author, she still remains a bitter individual with a bizarrely twisted outlook on life.

Initial reconciliations appear to begin well, but soon Margot’s insecurities start seeping out and her almost compulsive nature of picking out flaws in other lives starts to take its toll. Over the course of the next few days, past conflicts and present squabbling threaten to not only dampen the wedding but ruin it altogether.

This portrait of a family in distress is hard to classify, Baumbach is clearly a gifted writer and his ability to blend humor with seriousness is second to none. While Margot at the Wedding is both a comedy and a drama, moments of genuine humor are unfortunately few and far between. Jack Black successfully plays the lead male as Pauline’s husband and provides glimpses of this, but for large parts this film concentrates on family neuroses and bad behavior that would baffle most therapists. Fortunately an intelligent script and a very capable supporting cast including the ever impressive John Turturo, save this film. An interesting portrayal of sisterhood and family life, Margot and the Wedding provides a strangely absorbing look at emotional violence within family.

 

 

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