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Movie Review - Margot at the Wedding (2007)
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(What this rating means)
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| Director: |
Noah Baumbach |
| Starring: |
Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, and Jennifer Jason Leigh |
| Rated: |
R (for sexual content and language) |
| Length: |
92 minutes |
| Genre: |
Drama/Comedy |
| Tagline: |
One family. Infinite degrees of separation. |
| Studio: |
Paramount Vantage |
| Website: |
Margot at the Wedding |
| Release: |
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PLOT
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Whenever anybody asks me what this movie is about, my initial response is something along the lines of, "It's about 90 minutes of torture." After smugly patting myself on the back, making
the ol' rim shot noise with my mouth, and looking for praise for my witty repartee, I do my best to explain that the so-called "story" revolves around Nicole Kidman and her girlish son
visiting her estranged sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh, pooching her lips beyond insufferable lengths).
Jack Black, delivering perhaps the least impressive performance of his career, is a loser musician wannabe who Jennifer Jason Leigh has decided to marry. Of course, he doesn't meet the
approval of Kidman. The sisters complain, Jack Black fake cries a lot, Nicole Kidman's son does his best impersonation of a girl, every character makes me want to straight up gut stomp
them, and a whole lot of dysfunctional boredom ensues.
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JOHNNY'S TAKE
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Have you ever suffered from feelings of inadequacy? I'm just curious, because in all my humble modesty I have to admit that it's not really a state of being with which I'm very
familiar. However, I must admit that Margot at the Wedding is one movie that sent me home with delusions of insufficiency. You see, I've been struggling to come up with
the right words to describe my impressions of this little piece of cinematic dross. Neither Merriam Webster nor Roget has provided the verbal solace that I desire.
Leave it to my buddy Side-Hug Sam and his deft usage of Facebook SuperPokes to arrive via his mythological crane and throw down with a little deus ex machina action and save the day.
Get your dictionary folks, and prepare for some learnin'. I hereby submit the following quote to Paramount Vantage for future use on the movie's DVD cover.
*ahem*
"Margot at the Wedding is a movie rife with so much interminably boring pretension that the only pleasure a viewer can possibly derive from its existence is to imagine
it materializing and taking on human form so that it could then be subjected to the most vicious defenestration of which human hands are capable."
How do you like that, Noah Baumbach? Verbose enough for you?
As poetically eloquent as the above words are, they still don't quite capture the absolute bitter HATRED I feel for this waste of a budget. Much like my post-Egg nog Uncle
Larry, it rambles on way too long with no focus or sense of purpose and does nothing but further embarrass itself the more it talks. This is nothing more than a home movie of
unpleasant, miserable, despicable people mumbling through drab conversations regarding their unpleasant, miserable, despicable lives.
I'm sure Baumbach spent the majority of his set time patting himself on the back for his perceived cleverness. We're asked to embrace the quirkiness of random dinner conversations
that include the philosophy of men peeing while sitting down, but I refused, choosing instead to biker boot kick such lame derivations of faux originality.
Writing a Noah Baumbach script is very simple. Engage a group of losers in conversation, throw in a crude comment from out of the blue, let the cretins go back to their original
conversation, and watch the tweed-wearin' prospectors start to mine for philosophical gold. I could write a scene involving a family at dinner, let one of the children bust
out with, "Did you know Santa urinates through his nose?" and a handful of movie snobs would attempt to describe the deep meaning behind the statement. Margot at the Wedding
is 90 minutes of such ridiculousness, and I couldn't have despised it more if it had its name legally changed to Rosie O'Donnell.
Not to influence your decision or anything, but I haven't walked out of a movie with this much bile bubbling toward the surface since I miraculously survived a screening of
Date Movie. I guarantee you, as sure as I'm sitting here on my well-toned buttocks, that over 90% of moviegoers will hate this film. I'll
be shocked and awed if more than half make it through the entire runtime. If you do then I'll give you a sucker sometime. A suckerpunch, that is, for your bad movie taste.
After the screening, I curiously listened to everybody's feedback, intent to see if their vitriol was quite as acrid as mine. "Awful. Terrible. Worst movie ever," were just some
of the words and phrases I heard bandied about. The only person who claimed to like it was a 20-something guy sportin' a wool blazer, a turtleneck, and a neatly trimmed beard. If
you're the type of person who pretends to like movies that everybody else hates just so you can claim all of us close-minded sheep "don't get it" then you go right ahead and slap your
money down for this bore-sicle. You'll get exactly what you deserve.
As for me, I'm owed 90 minutes and an apology. Mr. Baumbach, I'll be waiting.
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ODDS & ENDS
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- It's official: HOLLYWOOD FEARS JOHNNY BETTS! I was under the impression that I simply had to hold my official review until a movie's release date. Welp, I received a phone call
from the studio informing me that I wasn't even allowed to post the following...
- Johnny Issues a Round of Apologies
Welp, I would like to apologize to anybody who happened to attend last night's screening of Margot at the Wedding due to passes that you received from me. Less than 100 people
showed up for the screening, so my conscience is pretty clear. For those of you who didn't go because you didn't have a pass in hand and didn't want to just show up, well, you owe me
a thank you. Consider it a sure sign of God's mercy.
Unfortunately, I apparently was due some sort of penance because I wasn't spared the 90 minutes of torture I had to endure. Wow, what an awful movie. I can't state strongly enough how
much I HATED it. I'll post my full review on Friday, and it will not be pretty.
I also owe Wes Anderson an apology. For some reason I thought he wrote and directed this floater, and I even attributed the film to him prior to the screening. I felt bad once the credits
rolled and I saw it was written and directed by some douchebag named Noah Baumbach. Noah, you owe ME an apology. As well as 90 minutes of my life back. My email can be found on this
page, so I expect to hear from you.
- The studio issued a strong warning that I not post these comments before the day of release, saying they were even worse than a review. Since I'm on their press list, I
politely complied. And I will say that the woman I talked to was very kind about it. I take this as a sign that Hollywood has finally realized they can't underestimate the
power of the Betts and the boots.
- Johnny Betts does not expect to receive a Christmas card from Noah Baumbach this year.
- Johnny hopes there's at least one person out there who liked this film who will dare challenge his opinion.
- Jack Black was in Envy with Ben Stiller who was in Flirting with Disaster with Josh Brolin who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.
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MAMA'S APPROVAL
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This actively goes out of its way to NOT meet mama's approval. We see Jack Black's naked rear-end and plenty of shots of him in tighty whities, and folks, it ain't easy on the eyes. Jennifer
Jason Leigh shows off a bit of her boobs, many "f" bombs are dropped, sexual content abounds, and other profanities and crude discussions exist in abundance.
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TRAILER COMPARISON
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I can't remember what I expected after watching the trailer, but I know it wasn't anything as bad as the finished product.
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THE GIST
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Avoid. Not even worth a rental. If I was given a do-over then I would choose not to see it. I'm literally grieved that "driving out of my way to spend 90 minutes watching
Margot at the Wedding" is a decision that has been written down on my permanent record. Is there any confusion left regarding my opinion? No? Good. Then learn from my
mistake and brilliantly poignant review and make it all account for something.
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