What Wedding?

Rarely do I jump out of my seat and bolt for the exit when the credits roll. I don't recall ever being the first person to leave the theater. After enduring ninety minutes of what felt more like a case study on borderline personality disorder than a dramatic film, I did indeed leap out of my seat and made it to the exit well before anyone else. It was a reaction. I didn't even have to use the bathroom.
I suppose one could say Margot at the Wedding is a very truthful rendering of cruelty and mental illness. But without much of a story, it just feels mean and crazy. Nicole Kidman gives a good turn as Margot, playing her character to full effect. An effect not unlike fingernails on a chalkboard. I suppose what Noah Baumbach is trying to do is render all of his characters with subtle flipsides to their most glaring character defects. But it just ends up being messy and psychotic. There's nowhere to go. It's an unraveling that hints at things not really ever changing that much. Baumbach lacks the chops of a Micheal Haneke or a Paul Thomas Anderson to reveal the characters' inner lives to make hinting at things being in stasis dramatic. He substitutes little details that you find in short stories in the New Yorker, i.e. a dead mouse at the bottom of the rich author's pool, for real dramatic action. Literary devices rarely translate directly into cinematic devices.
I must have liked something, right? The handheld camera work had a nice feel. Though most of the framing was frontal and boring. Okay, right, stuff I liked. Jennifer Jason Leigh. And the kid that plays Claude, Margot's pubescent son. That's about it for the likes. My biggest dislike was Jack Black. He was completely out of his element. His summertime B-movie schtick does not work in a serious film.
I really liked Baumbach's Squid and the Whale. I look forward to his next effort while I try to forget this one.

Better Luck Next Time,
Signore Direttore