Margot At The Wedding: Monster’s Ball (Spoilers!!!)

“I don't need to go to a campus bar to be reminded of my lack of success with a bunch of thrill seeking snotty college kids.”
-- Max from Kicking and Screaming (1995)

“Stay out of my life. I can't believe you'd talk to me like this. You left all those fucking ticket stubs and letters lying around! You wanted me to know. It was fucking torture, Joan! FUCKING TORTURE!”
-- Bernard Berkman from The Squid And The Whale

“Stop picking on me.”
-- Margot Zeller from Margot At The Wedding

Marcia Gay Harden’s Mrs. Carmody has nothing on Nicole Kidman’s Margot Zeller this holiday season at the multiplex. Mrs. Carmody is the religious zealot in Frank Darabont’s disturbingly brilliant film, The Mist-- she is just as frightening as the monsters outside the Food Market. Margot Zeller in Noah Baumbach’s stunning new film, Margot At The Wedding, leaves an emotional path of destruction wherever she goes. Mrs. Carmody and those monsters seem like amateurs in comparison. Margot Zeller is the richest performance in Nicole Kidman’s hit and miss career. The role should put to rest any fears that Nicole Kidman is box office poison. She thrives as Margot Zeller-- a one woman firestorm of calculating venom and paranoia with a savage tongue which spares no one in its path. Recently, Ms. Kidman has made some poor choices. Bewitched, The Stepford Wives and The Invasion must have looked great on paper, but the execution was sloppy. She had a trio of good roles with Moulin Rouge!, The Others and The Hours. Fur, Dogville and even The Human Stain seemed lacking in true emotional impact. Cold Mountain was all hype and no glory. In retrospect, Birth seemed liked a cinematic mirror to her marriage to Tom Cruise. Margot At The Wedding may be her best part since To Die For and the most fun she has had since Eyes Wide Shut.

Margot At The Wedding is a far darker film than Noah Baumbach’s previous film, The Squid And The Whale. Margot Zeller is certainly cut from the same cloth as Jeff Daniels’ Bernard Berkman, but I have a strong feeling that Margot could do away with Berkman in a matter of seconds. Margot, accompanied by her son, Claude (Zane Pais) goes on a surprise journey to her sister’s wedding. She is not expected, not welcomed. Margot and her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) have not spoken in a long time. As soon as they reunite with each other, we can see why. Margot is a furious hurricane. She starts with everyone and everything. Nothing is sacred to her. As soon as she meets Pauline’s fiancé, Malcolm (Jack Black), she begins to plant the seeds of doubt about Pauline’s second marriage. The first marriage may have been destroyed by Margot. She is a successful short story writer who wrote about Pauline and her first husband. Malcolm gives her plenty of fuel. He is unemployed artist. Margot believes that Malcolm is beneath Pauline in every way. Going so far as to say he is the kind of guy they used to reject when they were younger.

As Pauline, Jennifer Jason Leigh displays a laidback and carefree attitude that is the antithesis of her sister. The sibling bond is very believable. The body language between Leigh and Kidman is perfect-- several glances and movements say more about estrangement than any dialogue. Pauline is one of the best roles that Jennifer Jason Leigh has had in many years. Her spouse, Noah Baumbach, has written one of her best roles since her howitzer precision of dynamic characters of the 1990’s. She was good in supporting parts in The Machinist and Palindromes. She proved her directing skills with Alan Cumming in The Anniversary Party. Pauline stems from some of her best work in Short Cuts, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Mrs. Parker and The Vicious Circle, The Hudsucker Proxy, Existenz, Georgia and Single White Female. She has been a fireball of hot and cold action since Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Pauline encapsulates a diverse career of choices. Before Margot At The Wedding, I was beginning to wonder if she would make the equivalent of glorified cameos in the films of Todd Solondz and Brad Anderson. Thankfully, Pauline is a mature return to leading lady perfection.

Jack Black’s Malcolm is the halfway point between the characters he played in High Fidelity and School Of Rock. Malcolm is the perfect mix of comedy and tragedy. Malcolm seeks refuge within Pauline’s comfortable existence. He is a happy slacker in her home which is the childhood home of Pauline and Margot. We have seen variations of this character before played by Jack Black, but Baumbach manages to get the audience to sympathize with Malcolm throughout most of the film. He, like everyone else, becomes a target for Margot. Speaking of targets, newcomer Zane Pais, shines as Margot’s son. From the film’s opening moments on the train ride to Pauline’s house, we see the toll it takes being her son. He steps outside between the train cars and screams.

The myth of adulthood, not to be confused with Alfred Rosenberg’s The Myth Of the Twentieth Century, is at the heart of the Noah Baumbach’s films. Kicking and Screaming was the epitome of twenty something stagnation-- how I miss Chris Eigemen. None of the characters were ready to move on with their post college lives. This same theme is prevalent in the films of Wes Anderson and Judd Apatow. Adulthood is the Holy Grail-- the children are not sure what it is and the adults act like selfish, little children. It is no accident that Noah Baumbach wrote The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou with Wes Anderson. Anderson and Baumbach share a fascination with the subject matter. Yet, Baumbach’s characters in The Squid And The Whale and Margot At The Wedding are malevolent versions of Anderson’s childlike adults. While Royal Tenebaum, Steve Zissou and Patricia Whitman have followed their own bliss or just escaped any sort of parental or grown up responsibility, they are not the mean spirited characters who have sprung up from the last two Noah Baumbach films. Bernard Berkman would not win the father of year award in The Squid And The Whale. He seems to relish in his new found separation from his wife. To be fair, Laura Linney’s Joan takes advantage of her newfound liberation. Baumbach is a master of the dysfunctional family genre-- drawing on his personal life to create a very memorable and painful chronicle of divorce. Along with Knocked Up and The Darjeeling Limited, Margot At Wedding takes the genre down a darker and more sardonic path.

The beauty of Margot’s character is that Baumbach manages to convey an empathetic desperation. Margot has problems of her own. Her marriage to her husband, Jim (John Turturro) has reached the end of the line. She is having an affair with a fellow writer, Dick (Ciarin Hinds) who lives near Pauline. Did she only attend the wedding to spend time with Dick? In her own frenetic way, she still wants to shape Claude and protect him from the world. She treats him like a child, but he finds ways to revolt. Here is the kicker; she is so paranoid she thinks everyone is out to get her. In Margot, Noah Baumbach has created the epitome of a selfish and vindictive woman whose narcissism and toxic personality can destroy an entire family. Margot Keller is the ultimate monster of 2007. I will take my chances against the monsters in The Mist.

Atonement: Bending Reality (Spoilers!!!)

“Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to... depend greatly on our own point of view.”
-- Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

“I am very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused you. I am very, very sorry...”
-- Briony Tallis from Atonement

What we think we see is not always what we see. This is the central theme of Joe Wright’s astonishing film version of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons and The Quiet American) wrote the screenplay. The truth is fluid. At the heart of Atonement, there is a distortion of the truth. Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), a precocious thirteen year old girl, is an aspiring writer. The Tallis family lives on a beautiful, sprawling estate in the English countryside. In the glorious summer of 1935, Briony observes the romance between her older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and a servant’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy) whose Oxford education was provided by the sisters’ father. Briony has a fierce and vivid imagination. She does not understand what is going on between her sister and Robbie. This misunderstanding leads her to identify Robbie as the executor of a crime. Her misunderstanding has horrific consequences for everyone involved. She has no knowledge of adult behavior and passion. The ripple effects will span several decades causing endless pain and mental suffering.

Atonement is a beautiful looking film. The English countryside and the Tallis estate look as sumptuous and inviting as they have ever looked before. Seamus McGarvey treats every shot as a landscape. Within these visuals, beautiful things come to life. There is something extraordinary about Keira Knightley in this film and in Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice; where the camera seems to adore her much more than it ever did in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. As Cecilia, she is given a role where she never overstays her welcome. Her scenes with James McAvoy’s Robbie are short, but passionate. McAvoy is every bit her onscreen equal. Like Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, there is a definite onscreen chemistry between the two. Her actions throughout the film say enough. Ms. Knightley has an ethereal sexiness that has been prevalent since Bend It Like Beckham. In one scene, she rises from a fountain like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. As Cecilia, she proves her beauty is unique.

As Robbie Turner, James McAvoy delivers on the promise of his role as Dr. Nicholas Garrigan in The Last King Of Scotland. McAvoy was pleasant in Starter For Ten and Becoming Jane. He was a delight as Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. With Atonement, he enters David Niven and Ralph Fiennes territory. Yes, he is that good in the film. After Robbie is convicted of a crime he did not commit, he is sent off to prison. World War II begins and Robbie is given the choice to stay in prison or fight in the British Army. When we see Robbie again, he is in Northern French countryside. The British forces are retreating. Robbie’s journey takes him to Dunkirk. The chaos of the British evacuation at Dunkirk is told through a magnificent five minute steadicam shot. This five minute shot is reminiscent of Sergio Leone’s work in Once Upon A Time In The West, Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. The horror, chaos and devastation of war are on full display in these five minutes. The sequence does not work as a trite polemic, but a full blown indictment of eternal human folly. The film begs to be seen in a theater for this scene alone. As Robbie is making his way to Dunkirk, he stops in a movie theater showing Marcel Carne’s 1938 film, Port Of Shadows starring Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan. I could not think of a more appropriate film to be playing as Robbie enters Dunkirk. The film is about a military deserter who finds love and danger in a French port city. In a couple of more years, I think James McAvoy could have Jean Gabin stature.

The core of Atonement’s success rests with the three portrayals of Briony Tallis. The first third of the film, Briony is played by Saoirse Ronan at thirteen years old. It is here where Briony’s misunderstanding of the human condition has life altering consequences for the whole Tallis and Turner families. Her perception of the reality is a perverse distortion. She sees only what she wants to see. Was it her crush on Robbie that caused this perverted vision? Was she jealous of Cecilia? This is the ultimate version of cherry picking information. The results are tragic. When World War II begins, Cecilia is a nurse in London. Briony (Romola Garai) is in training to be a nurse as well. She is still an aspiring writer. It is in this segment that the nature of storytelling comes into focus. Can storytelling rectify the mistakes of the past? Briony is writing a novel about the unfortunate events of that summer. This is her atonement. She believes that by writing the truth she can wash away her sins and make everything all right again. Sadly, life is not that simple. Cecilia refuses to see her. One cannot blame her? Briony will spend her full life trying to atone for actions during that summer. In the end, Vanessa Redgrave play’s the older Briony. She is a famous novelist who has written a novel called Atonement. In these scenes, we see that the writer believes that he or she is God. They want to make everything right-- the novel as the ultimate panacea.

Briony is a metaphor for England as well. While the title certainly refers to the trials and tribulations of Briony Tallis, I believe the title also refers to England. The atonement of a nation that helped appease Adolf Hitler under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The horror that comes with having to evacuate the European continent under the Nazi menace. Yet, the British (Robbie) promise to come back to right this horrible wrong with the rest of the Allied Forces. England, like Briony, made horrible choices that had far reaching consequences. They misunderstood the monsters right at their door. Atonement is an astonishing testament to the need to right the wrongs in our lives.