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Margot At The Wedding
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Cameron Murray & Noor Razzak (30th March 2008). |
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The Film
 "Margot at the Wedding" is a movie that if I had seen it on a shelf I would have continued on without giving it a second look. Sadly sometimes when reviewing DVD's you do not get a choice as to what your subject matter is, and so it was with some remorse I placed "Margot at the Wedding" into my DVD Player and pressed play. This film is the story of Family who are somewhat (read: very) dysfunctional (read: neutering the family would do the world a favor). While sometimes pictures of this nature can strike a nerve as one recognizes ones own family before them, in this case I found myself with little to no empathy or sympathy for the characters whom the viewing audience were expected to feel both. The story is a slice of life family drama about Margot, a known writer (Nicole Kidman), and her teenage son (Zane Pais) going to the wedding of her estranged sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who is marrying Malcolm (Jack Black) under a tree that is the cause of much conjecture between Pauline and Margot’s Family and the neighboring Volgers. Margot doesn’t think that Malcolm is good enough for Pauline, and is not afraid to voice this opinion. She also tells her son Claude something that Pauline had stressed that she was telling Margot in confidence, putting more stress on an already strained relationship as previously one of Margot’s pieces of works had been based off of the stories which Pauline had told her in confidence ultimately leading to the end of Pauline's first marriage. While Margot seems comfortable telling other people’s business to those who do not need to know, she is resistant to tell her son that she is separating from his father and in fact is already seeing another man. This film seems to suffer from somewhat of an identity crisis, not knowing whether to call itself a comedy or a drama, a chick flick or an art house piece, and while it has touches of all of these it has no grounding in any of them. So, what you end up with is a mix-match of tones that seem to clash against each other and jar the viewer rather than mix into a fantastic viewing experience. While the movie seemed to lack focus, I cannot say the same for the cast. The majority of the performances were outstanding, Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh in particular whose interactions on screen were truly mesmerizing and held your attention even when the plot could not. The only downer as far as performance went was Jack Black’s, playing the ‘loser’ Malcolm, while for the most he was fine and in patches very good, when pushed to do an emotional and dramatic scene he struggled and at one point when crying he looked like a five year old crying to get out of trouble, realizing half way through that no one was buying it, but carrying on anyway. Apart from the performances in this film there are very few redeeming qualities with none of the characters really endearing themselves to the viewer, except maybe Pauline...at a stretch...possibly. So while this is not a terrible movie, it is not a good movie and it confirms that sometimes when I see movies and continue to walk on by, I’ve made the right choice. Walk on by.
Video
Presented in a widescreen ratio of 1.78:1 this anamorphic transfer is suitable at best, it's nothing to write home about. The image is clean and mostly sharp although there are a couple of soft spots here and there. The main problem with this transfers is that it felt a bit flat. Colors are dull, which is part of the aesthetic, blacks are deep and the print is free from dirt.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included in English Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its English soundtrack. The film is mainly dialogue focused, there's little emphasis on surrounds. The film has a minimalist soundtrack that does well by the dialogue, the film's score elements and some subtle ambient sound. Optional subtitles are included in English, French and Spanish.
Extras
The only extras Paramount saw for to included on this release is a short featurette and a series of trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up we've got "A conversation with Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh" this featurette runs for 12 minutes 55 seconds. Director Baumbach lightly glazes over the film without revealing too much background as his wife and cast member of the film also puts in her two cents worth. The clip features scenes from the film inter-cut. It's a short and frankly unmemorable clip that doesn't really deserve repeated viewing. There are two theatrical trailers created for the marketing of the film and they are both included on this disc, the first runs for 2 minutes 35 seconds while the second runs for 1 minute 43 seconds. Rounding out the extras are a collection of bonus trailers for: - "Into the Wild" which runs for 2 minutes 32 seconds. - "Things We Lost in the Fire" which runs for 2 minutes 25 seconds. - "The Heartbreak Kid" which runs for 2 minutes 20 seconds. - "There Will Be Blood" which runs for 2 minutes 16 seconds. - "The Kite Runner" which runs for 1 minute 57 seconds.
Overall
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