Margot At the Wedding (2007)

It's important for viewers to know ahead of time that Noah Baumbach's wry, somewhat sadistic follow up to his 2005 sleeper The Squid and the Whale is not exactly a "comedy". Whoever dares enter a screening of "Margot At the Wedding" should probably be warned that they will be met with much more screaming, crying and cussing than raucous laughter. Despite ingredients that under normal circumstances would just equal a blinding headache, Baumbach has crafted another insightful tale of the parents and their children who seem to be entering emotional adulthood simultaneously.

Margot (Nicole Kidman), a New York-based short story writer, is teetering on the edge of sanity (and alcoholism, it seems). She and her son Claude (Zain Pais) are invited to attend the marriage of her estranged sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Malcolm (Jack Black), a hapless doofus who spends his time sending in written responses to music reviews. To say the least, Margot does not approve. Her arrival inevitably leads to the revealing of long-buried neurosises and painful secrets.

Not since her Oscar-winning turn in 2002's The Hours has Kidman been this good. Her Margot is mind-bogglingly vicious, but just vulnerable and inept enough for us to find loathing her a difficult task. We manage to muster some semblance of sympathy for her. She knows that she is not a nice person. In one scene, her husband (John Turturro) has made the trip up to her sister's home, against her wishes. They're driving late at night when they spot a woman on the side of the road, cradling her injured dog who's been hit by a car. Margot's husband, Jim, pulls over to help, taking the woman and her dog to the vet. "You make me feel guilty," she says, attempting to prove her insensitivity towards the woman and her crisis. "I wouldn't have stopped." She's aware of her own venom, even as it comes catapulting from her mouth.

Pauline makes for a somewhat watered-down version of her sister. She's considerate and insightful, but it doesn't take long before her "abnormalities" begin to surface. Leigh, wife of writer/director Baumbach, is outstanding as always, having built up a sturdy repertoire of winning performances over the last two decades. Black holds up surprisingly well playing opposite two of the most seasoned and talented actresses working today. He's smart enough to understand his own range and forfeits his typical senselessness for sincerity, and a more genuine hilarity, despite Malcolm having more than his fair share of buried secrets.

The crazy, mixed-up family gathering is certainly not an uncommon plot device, but it's not often that it's carried out with such precision and wisdom. The film is plagued by an occasional loose end, one in particular being an awkwardly undeveloped relationship with Pauline and Malcolm's neighbors, who have a tendency to slaughter and roast whole pigs in their backyard. That said, Baumbach's writing is razor sharp and he's managed to illicit a number of great performances from his cast to create a marvelous character study. It can't be assured that by the end everyone has learned their lesson, but it's probably safe to say that every character finishes the day just one step closer to sanity.

Final grade: A-