Margot at the Wedding (2007)

This is the follow-up to the powerful and distressing The Squid and the Whale by writer/director Noah Baumbach. Able to pack his film with excellent actors, Baumbach does not change gears and continues down the path of family dysfunction.

Margot attempts to break up what she sees as a poor betrothal for her sister by attending the wedding. There, we meet a bunch of New England intellectuals (and Jack Black's character, a metalhead) who can't seem to manage their own lives. Margot, the strongest in the family and clearly the biggest emotional failure, tries to control everyone's lives, especially her son's. She does this while carrying on in drug addiction and adultery.

The fall landscape and the future for these creatures is bleak. We wait patiently for some sort of give and take, but each person decides strongly to take. While the writing is clever and the acting superb, because the characters are so spaced out and unreal, it is hard for viewers to really empathize.

Truth: When things aren't working out as you think/feel they should be, take a look at your own dysfunction.

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