Margot At The Wedding

365 Films

Entry #106

Margot At The Wedding (2007)

Directed by Noah Baumbach

If people were put off by the abrasive nature of The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach’s follow up Margot at the Wedding, is like a cinematic throwing down of the likability gauntlet.  To me, this is evident in the sequence late in the film, when the ostensible heroine Margot is giving a reading/discussion of her latest work at a bookstore near her family house where sister Pauline is about to get married.  The man interviewing her is local gad-about Dick Koosman (nice name by the way) and he begins to press her about the autobiographical details of her most recent novel, in particular, the grotesque portrayal of the father character.  The interview transitions into an unbearable amount of awkwardness when Dick tells Margot that he thinks the father could actually be, a stand-in for her.  To me, this scene has always read as somewhat of a rebuke to the critics who insisted upon asking Baumbach to bore into the personal history of his family details in relation to the content of The Squid and the Whale.  This scene (and the entirety of the film) represents Baumbach telling those people to have at it with this film, an almost flippant invitation to spend an inordinate amount of time with some truly toxic people and try to mine from it whatever clues about his personal life that they can.  It’s a challenge that also extends to the audience (obviously) and I can remember the distinct chill in the theater when I first saw Margot at the 2007 AFI Film Festival shortly before the films theatrical release that Thanksgiving.  People were put-off, annoyed, and most of all extremely uncomfortable by the poisonous tip of Baumbach’s writing implement.  I, personally loved it, and find Margot to be a much braver and bolder work than Squid, if not as entirely successful.  The aspect of the film I find most interesting (in particular when looked at in relation to Baumbach’s other work) is how much more advanced his visual story telling acumen had become at that point.  The editing and framing are sickeningly claustrophobic, as if we are tip- toeing and whizzing around each conversation, frantically trying to avoid the next personal blow out.  The squalid gray sky color palette and bleak, windy landscape signal an understanding of location and character that makes us feel at once alien and completely ingrained to the place these people call home.  Margot is also a testament to Baumbach’s endless ability with actors, as each performer shows tremendous skill at yo-yoing our sympathy and disdain back and forth and with equal measure.  The film also represents a high mark in the Baumbach catalogue in the Claude character (Margot’s son) for its portrayal of adolescent body transition and how not only does your attitude change about yourself but everyone else’s around you does as well.  Margot at the Wedding is most certainly not a one size fits all piece of filmmaking, but for those willing to indulge in its misanthropic wavelength, its pleasures are endless and consistently rewarding.