Okay.

Has anyone seen Margot At The Wedding? It apparently got horrible reviews but I just saw it and I think it is possibly one of the best movies I've seen in a year. I think it has subtle poignance and a realistic dysfunction that developes into complexity with more grace and intention than films of its kind:Juno. Of course it's dark and bleak but why can't dark and bleak be good? Here's part of a review that beautifully characterizes it:

Kidman, in a low-key but perfectly played piece of neurosis that is one of her subtlest and finest performances, holds all this together. As the film goes on, Margot, who is so controlling that she won’t let her teen son wear deodorant because she’s afraid he’ll get cancer from the chemicals ("I’m not going to get armpit cancer," he insists), can’t resist stirring up trouble; at times even she seems unaware of why she can’t stop meddling in everything, though she does need material for writing. Baumbach is perhaps suggesting that the writer, far from being the glamorous wit or loud drunk of many another film, is a kind of scavenger beast, a raccoon messing with everyone’s garbage and happy to skitter off into the night laying a trail of eggshells and coffee grounds. Instead of being shot, though, writers are rewarded for this.

Baumbach’s hilariously malformed dialogue, though, is always the highlight of his films. With "Kicking and Screaming," Baumbach came up with so many brilliantly crafted one-liners that he had to make every character a devastating wit, but in "Margot," which is less given to punchlines but equally alive with language, sentences swallow themselves and strange revelations clatter into the conversation as suddenly as a tray of silverware being dropped. A grave child confesses that she has "adult A.D.D." Another kid tells her that can’t be right; she must have regular A.D.D. No, she says: "For some reason I have the adult version." One fight is frustrated by poor penmanship: "If I could read your handwriting, I’m sure I’d be furious." Margot, told she’s a celebrity, demurs, but Pauline presses on" "You’re well known," she says. Margot replies, "To very few people," and they’re both right; Baumbach himself fits into the category. "I left a piece of skin in a movie theater so it could watch movies all its life," a line spoken by a kid, summarizes the movie’s tone of weird confession and half-cooked daydreams.

But Baumbach is not only one of the finest wordsmiths working in the medium. One character has a complete breakdown while an allegedly humorous Garfield mug sits in the foreground, the detail that makes it as dopey as reality. When Kidman’s Margot proves to herself and her family that she can climb a tree, the mood ranges from exhilarating to lonely, frightening and finally funny, all within about 30 seconds, with barely a word being spoken.

Yes, I've seen it. I have to run to work now, but I'll read your comments and respond as soon as I get a chance. You're the only one I know who has also seen it.

That's a great review. It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'm trying to remember it all. It was definitely darker and more heartwrenching than Juno which I don't really see as a family-dysfunction film. In Margot I thought all the actors were great and the characters well-rounded and three-dimensional. My main problem with it, of course, was the ending. I love disturbed open endings, but I felt, in this case, it was a bit of a cop out ending. But I guess it's non-traditional in a sense -- Margot's character doesn't experience growth or change, which is usually the main thrust of a story. I felt like the movie was a great character study of a dysfunctional family, but not really a story. More a day-in-the-life-of kind of thing. Well done for what it is, but a bit limited in carrying an overall message. Unless that message is "People don't change"???

heartbeatocean said:

But Margot did change. The ending is the event of that. When the sister gave Claude (was that his name?...Anyway, Margot's son) that advice saying "Don't worry, she often changes her mind." Margot was going to stay in their childhood town and try and live out the love affair with (oh the names are escaping me...the lover/writer). She was shipping her son back to Vermont, just like in her story she discussed at the book reading, and was planning on staying self centered but she changed (her mind) and got on the bus with her son and finally dealt with her dysfunctional psyche through mature actions. She is in fact the character of the father in the story. Controlling, unbearable. Yet the father in the story doesn't have a break through, Margot does. She changes. Of course not dramatically. Baby steps, but that's how we all do it.

I did feel like Juno was about dysfunctional characters with alot of cynicism that ultimately deal with maturity in a somewhat functional way but still stay quite nestled in their own behaviors. I found it to turn a little more hopeful but in a sort of juvenile, humor-washed way. Margot is a completely different film in all aspects except that it also contains the theme of dysfunction.

Sorry for being vague, but is this the film with Jack Black in it?

greenpixies said:

Wow, I have a completely different interpretation of this. I found Margot's actions at the end to be anything but mature. She abandons her purse and belongings on the street curb and chases after the bus screaming "Wait, wait!" after it has just taken off and she has said goodbye to her son. Which would be completely embarrassing to ANY teenager. Then she jumps onto the bus and smugly says, "That was pretty good, wasn't it?" about her performance. Because that's what it was, a performance, a false show of love.



Dysfunctional because she accidently got herself pregnant? I don't know. The parents are in a solid, long term relationship. They come out in full support and understanding of their daughter's situation, respecting her choices and helping her realize them. Seems like an unusually "functional" family to me. I don't know. They weren't perfect human beings, but their idiosyncrasies seemed fairly normal. Margot shows far more neurosis and irrational, relationally destructive behavior than anyone in Juno, except maybe for the rock-and-roll would-be dad who bails on the adoption.

thesexofit said:

Yeah. He was pretty good. I love his character in this.

heartbeatocean said:

Cool. Nice to see him diversify and be good at it (I'll take your word he is good LOL).

He has come along way from the abysmal "neverending story III"

heartbeatocean said:

Yes, she gets on the bus with her usual quirks but I don't think it's about showmanship, I think it's about her coming to terms with her abilities. Since she is obviously a very insecure person who berates everyone else because of her lask of confidence and selflessness, I feel like the ending was her saying out loud "I can do something unexpected, I have the ability to be unlike what I hate." I don't know. I didn't find him to be embarassed by it. It seemed like an appropriate way for that family to display love. But, your interpretation could be the films intention.





Dysfunctional because of the constant cynicism and jokes. The parents reaction is "I was hoping she was one drugs or..." Insinuating that pregnancy is a worse affliction than drug addiction. Sure, they come together for a heroic support system but it is a bit dysfunctional to treat your kid as your friend. Yes, I am allowed to say that the circumstances in which she got pregnant are dysfunctional. Giving the baby to a single mother is dysfunctional. The relationship the adoptive father grew towards Juno is dysfunctional. The ending, in which Juno's boyfriend doesn't want to see the baby is dysfunctional. He created life for God's sake. I found the whole thing to be depressing in a bad way. Margot contains alot more obvious dysfunction but in a dynamic way. I definitely felt like there was a complete story in the end that warranted reflection.

greenpixies said:[quote]

heartbeatocean said:

You are using the term "dysfunctional" (which is a way overused, pretty meaningless term anyway) as a judgment for life choices that you don't agree with. I thought the "I was hoping she was on drugs..." line was a joke to lighten up the atmosphere. I don't think the parents really believed that. They definitely don't follow the "pregnancy is a worse affliction that drug addiction" train of thought in the rest of the film. It's just a one-liner.

It would be dysfunctional if one parent treated Juno as a friend at the expense of her having a social life of her own and the parent not having a relationship with their spouse. In this scenario, it is clear that the parents hold the primary relationship and have a good, solid, responsible love relationship. The bit of tension between step-daughter and step-mother is normal and healthy.

I don't know what the "function" should be around her getting pregnant or not, but it did irk me they didn't bother to use any birth control!!! That is, I assume they didn't...

If you're looking at things in terms of "function", I think giving the child to a mother who will be utterly devoted to it is functional. Not ideal to be single, but functional.

Yes, the relationship of the adoptive father to Juno is inappropriate and he seemed to be the least healthy character in the movie.

It's funny while you thought Juno to be depressing, I found it to be too cutesy. I wasn't crazy about the movie. But I think it's great that it shows a situation of real life, where nobody is perfect, no circumstance is perfect, but they figure it out and for the most part, it works.