#margotatthewedding

Margot At The Wedding (2007) : A Rant (Spoilers)

I remember recently talking with a friend about how awesome the Jennifer Jason Leigh renaissance of the past few years has been.  Eventually, the conversation somehow drifted to how great of a movie The Squid and the Whale was.  That, my friends, was a perfect storm that I had no idea existed... until one of my friends piped up and recommended an emotional atomic bomb in the form of Margot at the Wedding. 

Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her young son Claude (Zane Pais) are heading to Margot’s childhood home where her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) now lives.  The sisters have been estranged for quite some time, no thanks to Margot’s ‘strong’ personality.  Pauline plans to marry her boyfriend Malcolm (Jack Black), but true to her nature, Margot begins to exert her will on everyone in her sphere, casting doubts into the proceedings.  When Margot’s affair Dick Koosman (Ciaran Hinds) shows up, it further complicates things, as Pauline and Malcolm’s extent of involvement with the Koosman family is the occassional babysitting job for their teenage daughter Maisy (Halley Feiffer).  Margot, in a bad place due to troubles with her husband Jim (John Turturro) and her affair with Dick, proceeds to amp up things, eventually causing several levels of extensive fallout that those closest to her are left to pick up and put back together.

Margot is a master at projecting her sadness onto everyone, while Pauline is doing everything she can to try and be agreeably peaceful just to have one moment for herself.  With Margot’s masterful ability at manipulation, words that cut like knives, and a knack for incredibly devastating timing of information release, she literally becomes a walking natural disaster set to ruin any life in her path.  In the way that the old adage ‘misery loves company’ plays out, Pauline and her tactic of sisterly straightforwardness eventually outweighs politeness and unconditional love, with heavy judgements to follow after the realization that Margot must want Pauline to be miserable as well.  Essentially, she is forced to be brutally honest about Margot and her actions as a way to defend herself from them.

It is extremely interesting how Margot and Malcolm are very much alike due to strong personalities, but complete opposite sides of the coin when it comes to how those personalities see the light of day.  Margot is happy forcing control on others, while Malcolm seems to have accepted a lack of control, and all of the moroseness that comes wtih it.  Their anger plays counterpoint to one another in terms of how they vent, with the Volger’s and their stoic anger over Margot and Pauline’s childhood tree serving as a mechanism to make Margot somewhat likable (and not just attractive) to the viewer.  

Claude going through puberty serves as the perfect viewer vessel.  The waves of emotion going through the house are relatable to him specifically because of the changes he is going through, but his male mind does the best it can to trap all of that madness in the realm of rationality.  On the one hand, he is directly connected to Maisey and Ingrid, whose emotional swings would make sense for their age.  His extremely close connection to his mother, however, makes him a raw nerve for her manipulative ways, with him catching a healthy dose of her attacks directly.  Outside of Jim, Claude really has nobody to lean on in terms of a solid and coherent personality, although the love of his aunt Pauline does wonders for him, providing him the majority of his few relaxed and happy moments.

Nicole Kidman brings a powerfully deep well of manipulation and passive-aggressiveness to the table, making the degree that your eyes fixate on her equal to the degree that your mind cannot fathom her actions.  By comparison, Jennifer Jason Leigh brings tons of warmth as a result of trying to offset Kidman’s sinister nature.  Jack Black and his frustrations parallel those of Kidman’s, but only as a way to provide scale for Kidman’s darkness, as most of Jack Black’s outburst play comical more so than vengeful.  Zane Pais is able to provide a wide range of emotional expression in the shadow of the powerful force that is Kidman’s Margot, constantly reacting pitch perfectly to her forceful nature.  Ciaran Hinds plays the victim taking a stab at his torturer to a tee, first coming on as someone just happy to be in the presence of Margot despite her marriage before cutting her down to size, one of the few in the film to properly do so.  Supporting roles from Flora Cross, Halley Feiffer and Michael Cullen also stand out, with a brief appearance from John Turturro leaving you wishing for more.