Review of Margot at the Wedding (2007) by Chads. — 04 Jan 2008

Since "Margot at the Wedding" denies its audience any childhood flashbacks, meeting mom might provide some illumination on the fractured relationship between both sisters, but we never get to meet her; the matriarch of a severely dysfunctional family, because Margot(Nicole Kidman) runs away with her son Claude(Zane Pais).

"Margot at the Wedding" is seemingly photographed through the prism of Margot's writerly mind. Sometimes the sun is out, but nobody feels its warmth. Margot's emotional baggage acts like an eclipse.

Her life and art are too intertwined. Margot confuses her family with their fictionalized counterparts and stares them down with the same cold eye of objectivity. Margot is in dire need of an editor to discourage her word choice as a mother when speaking to Claude.

She brutalizes him with honesty that will inevitably cut his heart out. After all, a writer's words are precise like a Ginzu knife. It's already too late for Pauline(Jennifer Jason Leigh), Margot's first victim, and certainly not her last.

Like "The Squid and the Whale", this filmmaker depicts self-love. As Margot pleasures herself, it's clear that the intent isn't born out of eroticism. The act itself is a metaphor for the love/hate relationship Margot negotiates with her mind; a self-perpetuating cycle of self-absorption and release.

"Margot at the Wedding" is not entertaining in the traditional sense of the word, but you can't take your eyes off this Dogma(the movement founded by Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier)-like presentation of human wreckage in the countryside, served on a silver platter for Margot's abstract consumption.