Margot at the Wedding

The opening scenes of Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding are so sharp and funny and good, that it's upsetting to report that the film cannot maintain its momentum, but flails and flounders, before finally giving way to a deluge of histrionics and an unsatisfying conclusion.

Margot (Nicole Kidman) and Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) are estranged sisters; they use the occasion of Pauline's wedding to unemployed artist Malcolm (a very funny Jack Black) to try and repair their damaged relationship. Pauline still lives in the family house, a beautiful old place on the edge of the ocean, in an unnamed location which is disconcertingly impossible to place: it's got that windy, sandy, wonderful beach on one side, but somehow there are woodsy, red neck neighbors on the other -- over the top characters who gut a pig and grill the carcass round a a spit for dinner.

There are also various children around for the reunion of sisters: Margot's appealing adolescent son Claude (Zane Pais), Pauline's less vividly drawn daughter Ingrid (Flora Cross), and not seen, but also present, the secret baby developing in Pauline's womb. The party also includes Margot's wounded husband (John Turturro) and her smarmy adulterous lover Dick (Ciaran Hinds), who happens to live down the road from sister Pauline. Dick has a beautiful swimming pool and an alluring teenager daughter Maisy (Halley Feiffer), who does baby-sitting duty, with some low grade seduction on the side.

In the days leading up to the wedding, this cast of characters comes together and combusts. Like Baumbach's previous, equally wrought The Squid and the Whale, the filmmaker deftly captures how positively awful family members can be to the people they are supposed to love. Kidman, especially, turns in a fine performance--so good that you want to strangle the manipulative Margot when she decides to give Pauline an honest opinion on her fiance. The push and pull and conflicted feelings of adult sisters rings painfully true.

What doesn't convince, however, is the level of melodrama that plays out. It is not enough for Margot to wreck havoc on Pauline's seemingly happy life. Pauline has to fight back, turning on Margot's defenseless son. The good-natured Malcolm pulls out dark secrets for further dramatic impact. For one solid, emotion-filled hour, Margot at the Wedding is jammed with meaningful moments, startling revelations, secrets betrayed, tears shed, monologues delivered, blaring chainsaws abused, dogs lost, and even an inexplicable burst of neck biting violence from the neighbor's son.