Article: Family guy; Noah Baumbach plumbs the inky depths of smart, shallow people. Plus: Brian De Palma's Redacted.(MOVIES)(Margot at the Wedding)(Movie review)

FILMMAKERS UNDER PRESSURE from studios or distributors often sand down their characters' edges too much, hoping to make them easier to identify with, but that's not a problem in Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding: His characters are garishly narcissistic from first frame to last. Short-story writer Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her teenage son, Claude (Zane Pais), pay a visit to the island home of Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who's about to marry Malcolm (Jack Black), an unemployed blowhard. As the sisters thrust and parry and blurt out anything that comes into their neurotic, defensive heads, the camera is right in their faces, the editor leaping from close-up to close-up. ...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!