- I’m not sure how I feel about this trend toward dysfunctional family dramas that don’t really have much plot and then end in end in an abrupt and open-ended way. I like that people feel increasingly comfortable moving away from clean and tidy endings that leave the viewer with no questions to ask, but at the same time I feel like the attempt to closer mimic real life and illustrate how neurotic people are in their day to day life can border on boring at times. It’s like…. you’re neurotic, I get it, haven’t I already seen this movie a thousand times? I have to say, though, that I tend to feel a lot more empathy toward these kind of characters than with the bored suburban parents who act like children that have also been permeating film for the last decade.
- Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, and especially Jennifer Jason Leigh were really, really good in this. There was a fine line in some of Jack Black’s more emotional scenes where he could have toppled over into extreme self-mocking, but I think he did okay.
- However, his random “I love teenage girls” storyline was sort of… unnecessary. I feel like there could have been a less contrived way for Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character to leave him than for that to creep into the story.
- I kept expecting it to turn into a horror movie because of the creepy mysteriousness the neighbours were imbued with right from the beginning. Putting a pig’s hoof in your neighbours’ garbage? Not cool and obviously symptomatic of a gang of serial killers waiting to slit your throats in your sleep. Or it would have been, in another movie.
- I really hated it every time Margot would say that she and her son were from Manhattan, that they lived in Manhattan, that there’s no need to learn how to swim in Manhattan. I get it: you’re from Manhattan and you’re not enjoying visiting your sister out in the sticks, shut up about it already.
- The trailer makes this look more like a bitter comedy more than it actually is.
- Also speaking of the trailer: they had a wonderful version of “Our House” in it that never made it into the movie. Why do people insist on doing this? It drives me nuts.
Margot at the Wedding
Yet another neurotic family drama.
IMDB Plot Synopsis Margot and her son Claude decide to visit her sister Pauline after she announces that she is getting married to less-than-impressive Malcolm. In short order, the storm the sisters create leaves behind a a mess of thrashed relationships and exposed family secrets.