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September 01, 2007
The Id & The Wail
I was not the biggest fan of The Squid & The Whale. In fact, amongst its many supporters, I was said to hate the film. I did not. I was completely comfortable that I understood Noah Baumbach’s milieu and his intentions. I appreciated the standout performances across the board. And I laughed and winced during the film. My complaint was… so what? How whinny would this guy be if he had a truly dysfunctional family to deal with?
Margot At The Wedding is not the answer to this query.
This is not say that the film is not aspiring to convince us that we are watching the most dysfunctional people EVER. Still, just writing that title, with all of its French sophisticate pretentiousness and an inaccurate description of the film, makes me blanch a little after the fact.
The fact is, I could not have imagined how much of a failure a Baumbach screenplay could be after turning in such a well structured, character supported screenplay just a couple of years ago. And that is where the deep problem lies in this film. He gets a strong piece of low-key acting out of Nicole Kidman. His wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh, remains incapable of not baring her soul to my amazement in every role that she plays. Jack Black does a nice job until the screenplay turns nastily on his efforts to be more than a clown, demanding laughs by being funny and not by acting. And the rest of the cast, especially the kids, deliver all that is asked of them.
But while Baumbach proves himself more than capable of delivering a GenX sitcom, stealing laughs throughout the proceedings, he fails completely in his effort to make sense of all the different walking punchlines into which he turns his characters. It is the definition of bad dramaturgy to have to tell the audience over and over and over again what the meaning of the characters’ actions are. And that failure defines virtually the entire movie.
Without getting into detail here, this is a simple tale of the more traditionally attractive, more successful, higher strung sister who has estranged herself from her siblings returning to the home that was left to her less traditionally attractive, less successful, about to settle sister. Tension and drama and laughs ensue. Along for the ride are the one child of each of the sisters (one boy and one girl, who look more like family than their mothers), the fiancé one is not-so-unhappily settling for, and an attractive neighbor man and his big breasted teenage daughter.
The pressure cooker is that the wedding is coming, the sisters haven’t been close in a while because they each like to poke at the other, and the city sister doesn’t approve of the fiancé one little bit. There is more, but you may choose to see this film and you should have the chance to discover the turns for yourself.
The problems start when each sister starts to define the other in ways the audience laughs at, but isn’t given any insight into. This makes pleasure a very temporary condition.
Allow me one small example that I think illustrates the problem that permeates the film. There is a sequence in which the family is gathered outside to have a casual lunch. The giant old tree that the girls grew up with looms over the yard. The tree is, like so many things, a recurring point of discussion that makes its symbolic value in the eyes of the screenwriter completely apparent… and never pays off effectively… the payoff that does come, almost comically movie cliché.
In any case, the presence of the tree leads to a discussion of how the city sister (Kidman) would fearlessly climb pretty much anything as a child. This leads to her being goaded into climbing the tree. The ultimate punchline is in the movie for your pleasure.
But let’s look before the punch. First, we have the metaphor of the more successful sister being a rabid climber. The joke would be very easy to overdo… but without the invocation of that metaphor, what is the frickin’ point? On the more literal level, we have Kidman taking up the challenge. Why? I don’t really care what the answer is. But the must be an answer or we are nowhere. Moreover, how incredibly silly is it to have this woman climbing a tree in tight linen pants and an expensive sweater and shirt? On what planet would she do this?
But more importantly, what does this sequence say about everyone involved? And if it is "just a joke," why is it in this film? Character comedy without depth is almost never successful. Even in the stupidest forms of comedy, motivation drives the laugh, which is why, for instance, the best of Adam Sandler is often the stupidest... because you know exactly why The Waterboy is behaving the way he is.
And of course there is a punchline that seems to save the sequence. But so what? Baumbach lost me because all he did was to reach for the closing punch.
You could claim that I am making too much out of too little, but the entire film is quite intentionally a house of cards with all Jokers. If you take the sugar out of the meringue, you can have the best of the other ingredients, but you will never have a meringue that feels right.
By comparison, look at The Squid & The Whale. My issues with that film were not unlike my issues with Crash. It did what it did well, but I didn’t care for what it wanted to do. But every character choice in TS&TW was motivated with great clarity. Extreme behaviors and wacko choices were made, but even when straining credulity, we could understand the back story of each choice without it ever being Basil Expositioned.
Mom bangs the younger, better looking, intellectually inferior tennis coach? Of course. Dad begs the college girl to put “it” in her mouth like a boy in a back seat? Yes… duh… yes. The younger son is acting out as he is also being twisted by puberty? Sure, I will buy him spreading his seed all over the library. The kid who is desperate in equal measure for positive and negative attention pretending he wrote a Pink Floyd song? (Title error corrected, 9/4) Sure. You can say it was a dumb move, but you can also argue he desperately wanted to be caught.
There was not a false note or an extreme/wacky reach in that entire film. In this one, Baumbach has Jack Black doing schtick from scene one to the end. What will you remember most from the film? Not memorable lines, but an insanely unlikely (without better set-up) scene of masturbation, another discussion of masturbation, and an unexpectedly bare ass and discussion of penis size. Yawn!
Baumbach The Writer daringly opens up a massive can of worms in the overall story arcs of this film. But he fails Baumbach the director, who does a nice job with a great assist from D.P. Harris Savides, who seems to know when the scenes are going nowhere because he keeps punctuating them with the thinnest forms of humor.
I really didn’t think I would dislike this film as I did and honestly hoped that I would be getting on the Baumbach train this time. Instead, we got Friends With Money, aka a weak effort from a smart, interesting, somewhat overrated young writer/director who bit off more than they could really consider chewing. Baumbach may yet be the slacker Woody Allen. But he better get someone around him who will tell him the truth about the structure and basic storytelling issues when they turn up… or we will be seeing some TV series from Baumbach on HBO with lots of "shockingly raw sex" as his primary career driver before you can say, “Wasn’t that guy going to win a bunch of Oscars?”
Posted by poland at September 1, 2007 07:25 AM
Comments
As I've never really found Baumbach's sense of humor funny, I always felt like I was watching a steeming pile of pretention whenever I watched one of his movies. I'm glad, from the sound of this, that there's no reason to have to watch this one.
Posted by: Me ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 1, 2007 08:45 AM
It's a Pink Floyd song, Dave, just for accuracy's sake.
Posted by: Drew at September 1, 2007 03:40 PM
Shut up Drew. If you're concerned about accuracy, why not rove through that shit-filled kiddie den website of yours and try to sift through the half-truths and full-on lies.
Christ, why won't you just die?
Posted by: RocketScientist at September 2, 2007 12:02 AM
I never saw The Squid and the Whale. The sort of characters that he had in that movie tend to make me really angry and annoyed so I skipped it. But this one has Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh so I'll be there, despite your reservations.
" Moreover, how incredibly silly is it to have this woman climbing a tree in tight linen pants and an expensive sweater and shirt? On what planet would she do this?"
Perhaps on a planet where she has enough clothes and/or money to buy new clothes.
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at September 2, 2007 12:33 AM
I find it amusing that someone calls me "juvenile" and calls my site a "kiddie den," but thinks that conversation about film is ever a reason to tell someone else to "just die."
Posted by: Drew at September 2, 2007 12:51 AM
Don't sweat it, Drew, there are bad apples everywhere. Those who get bent out of shape to the pont of wishing death upon another human being usually are the ones who truly love film. Because to love film is to love talking about it, arguing about it which I think for the most part we do here with respect. But, we definitely need less of people calling each other assholes or retards because of an opinion and more discussion about why we feel the way we feel. That was really Dr. Phil of me.
Posted by: Noah at September 2, 2007 01:07 AM
"Christ, why won't you just die?"
"I'm Christ, asshole! I ALREADY DIED ONCE! I DONT FEEL LIKE GOING THROUGH IT AGAIN!"
Nevertheless; I dig Baumbach and most likely will dig this film. While Heat has a hard time believing a woman would climb a tree in that outfit. May I throw out there that the scene is based on a dare. People get fucking whacky with DARES, Heat.
Posted by: IOIOIOI at September 2, 2007 02:20 AM
Hey, don't be picking on Friends with Money. That was one of my favourite films last year!
Posted by: wongjongat at September 2, 2007 09:20 PM
Hey yo... who doesnt love Friends With Money? I love movies where the heroine somehow ends up with a guy with money... ANYWAY! Totally bringing everything full circle by giving that character money to flaunt with her friends... who have money. That's a movie! It also has some awesome Rickie Lee Jones music. Which is always a good thing.
Posted by: IOIOIOI at September 2, 2007 11:18 PM
I have no problem with the correction... I thank Drew for it... it was polite and not snarky... and it has now been corrected in the piece with a correction note.
Posted by: David Poland at September 4, 2007 07:39 AM
I actually like this film. This movie in a way reminds me of my family (only SOME parts) and to see Nicole as a dysfunctional lunatic, made me really really enjoy this movie! Just watch the trailer guys.. www.margotatthewedding.com
Posted by: Ella at November 9, 2007 09:18 AM
I actually liked this film. This movie in a way reminds me of my family (only SOME parts) and to see Nicole as a dysfunctional lunatic, made me really really enjoy this movie! Just got see the trailer guys.. www.margotatthewedding.com
Posted by: Ella at November 9, 2007 09:20 AM
Thank you, marketing robot.
Posted by: jeffmcm at November 9, 2007 09:37 AM
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