Margot at the Wedding

Director Noah Baumbach (right) with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Noah Baumbach with Jennifer Jason Leigh

MARGOT AT THE WEDDING                               A-                   

USA  (92 mi)  2007  d:  Noah Baumbach

Another blistering critique of family dysfunction, while The Squid and the Whale (2005) featured a repugnant father (Jeff Daniels), this film features one of the more revolting mothers in Nicole Kidman’s neurotically smug Margot, an upscale New Yorker who perhaps best represents what years of therapy gone wrong can do.  Honest to the point of being compulsive, where she can’t help herself from making snide, overly critical remarks, she’s willing to destroy all those around her in the name of truth and honesty, used like a bulldozer to clear the landscape around her, where her primary purpose appears to be to deflect personal criticism away from herself, completely oblivious to the ramifications of her actions.  She’s brazenly horrible, where her overly grumpy nature around others, exacerbated by the everpresent glasses of wine, lead to despicable family betrayals which she reveals like open sores through her successful short stories.  Of primary interest, due to her literary acclaim, she is actually considered the breadwinner and the voice of reason and success in the family, even though she hasn’t spoken to her more free-spirited sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in years.  They are burying the hatchet, however, as Pauline announces she’s about to be married to the mildly artistic but perennially unemployed musician, Malcolm (Jack Black), who Margot immediately detests and undermines.  More friction and emotional chaos ensues.  Shot on 35 mm using older lenses and natural lighting in underlit darkened exteriors by Harris Savides, this is a savagely dark comedy with only brief traces of humor, which is instead dominated by a foul cruelty that expresses itself in strange ways, like the unwanted string of personal critiques coming from Margot towards her 12-year old son Claude’s (Zane Pais) entrance into puberty with the first emergence of body odor, the strange and cruel neighbors next door who want them to chop down an immense tree that borders their property, claiming the roots are rotting, poisoning their plants, and the disappearance of a well-liked family dog. 

The first collaboration of Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh after their marriage in 2005 (filing for divorce five years later), the film opens with Margot and Claude taking a train from New York to the Hamptons on Long Island, the exclusive territory of The Great Gatsby, which may as well be a journey back to her childhood, as Pauline inherited their mother’s summer home, an idyllic old house on the New England coast, so it brings back a flood of memories and stored up resentments which come to a head almost immediately, where Margot assumes her domineering role as the older sister, showing her true colors when she instantly reveals information told to her in confidence that Pauline is pregnant and intentionally hadn’t told anyone else, as she didn’t want people to believe that’s why she was marrying Malcolm.  Pauline’s daughter Ingrid (Flora Cross) immediately becomes concerned wondering why her mother didn’t tell her, as well as Malcolm who’s somewhat ambivalent about becoming a father, believing this may be the stage in life where he’s not the most important person in the world anymore.  Margot is using the wedding as an excuse to visit an undisclosed lover, a smug popular novelist Dick (Ciaràn Hinds), whose summer home is nearby.  Baumbach is an exquisite writer of believable dialogue, like a screwball comedy writer of the 30’s, but more directly accurate, piercing through the most embarrassing situations.  When Margot is publicly enticed to climb a tree like she did as a precocious teenager, she manages to get to the top but is paralyzed, too frightened to get down, calling in the fire department as if it was an official emergency.  This story reflects a growing unease that people have with each another, revealing how people unhesitatingly poison the waters of the world around them, like opening the floodgates of the obnoxious behavior displayed on opinion-oriented talk radio, disparaging everyone around them while at the same time they somehow attempt to balance a sense of trust and personal honesty with their friends and family, and in this case an all but doomed impending marriage.  Somehow, the more they try to make it work, the worse it gets. 

While this film has a feeling of incompleteness with so much background information delayed or left out of the film completely, a bit like entering in midair and having to figure out how to fly, but what it does show in sharply defined characters is revealed in intimate detail, sparing nothing, in a scathing portrait of a maladjusted family behaving like they’ve always done, which is tear each other to shreds.  This is a no holds barred indictment of moral hypocrisy, people who use honesty as a weapon to hold others at bay, which gives them a phony sense of superiority.  What’s unique here is that such self-absorbed adults are behaving so wretchedly inappropriately in front of their own children.  Claude especially is a quietly sensitive kid, played with a beautiful sense of authenticity by Pais, but he’s subject to constant critiques from his mother even over the smallest things, where every detail of his life comes under neverending scrutiny, yet he’s attached to her and loves her, even if she doesn’t know how to love him back, telling him that when he was a baby, she wouldn’t allow anyone else to hold him, yet confesses privately “I think that was a mistake.”  Despite the horrid things Margot says and does, Pauline is basically a forgiving soul and her maternal instincts are more on the mark.  When the inevitable dust up with Margot reaches volatile proportions, the audience is surprised with how quickly Pauline’s anger subsides and her more easy going personality takes center stage.  Jennifer Jason Leigh is luminous in this role, yet her character has a surprising passivity, where her low key nature allows her sister (and others) to trample all over her again, yet she’s stunningly appealing displaying such an open vulnerability.  A unique and refreshingly daring work, always smart and articulate, all the performances feel pitch perfect in this small incendiary chamber drama, like an off-stage Broadway production made on a miniscule budget, offering a great deal more freedom of expression, more bang for your buck, where we may remain haunted afterwards by the wrenchingly expressed unpleasantness of these troubled souls.    

The Bling Ring

THE BLING RING      C+                  

USA  (90 mi)  2013  d:  Sofia Coppola 

Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends.             

—Frank Ocean, “Super Rich Kids” Frank Ocean - Super Rich Kids on Vimeo YouTube (5:05)

Once again, Sofia Coppola zeroes in on the vacuous and empty-headed lives of spoiled and pampered, overly rich white kids from Hollywood whose parents are nearly absent from their lives, so they are literally consumed by the very public lives of the fabulously wealthy, impressed by their jewelry, fashion taste, magazine spreads, celebrity television and movie appearances, and how they love to party in the upscale club scene, constantly seeing the faces of other young stars in all the tabloids and magazines, continually wondering why it can’t be them?  Adapted by the director from real life occurrences that were reported in an article “The Suspects Wore Louboutins,”  by Nancy Jo Sales from Vanity Fair, March 2010 about a group of Hollywood teens who burglarized the homes of their idols, stealing their clothes and jewellery, not to mention large wads of cash, while spending their money at the same clubs where their favorite stars hung out.  Surprised that the homes were so easy to break into, as usually sliding glass doors were left open, or keys left under the doormat, it was easy to Google their addresses and find out what celebrities were out of town for a special event, leaving their homes vacant.  While stealing over $3 million worth of jewelry, high end clothes, Rolex watches, fashionable shoes, perfume, makeup, artworks, and stashes of various social drugs and cash from the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Rachel Bilson, and Audrina Patridge, their favorite house turned out to be Paris Hilton, returning repeatedly, stealing $2 million dollars alone from the stuff taken from her home.  Paris Hilton wasn’t even aware anything was missing until months later, as the group’s undoing came by foolishly posting photos of themselves on Facebook wearing these newly acquired items, which served as easy evidence of stolen merchandise for the police once they caught on. 

While Coppola has an appealing experimental style that works best in a non-narrative, stream-of-conscious style, the very lack of definition suits her highly impressionist form, as her use of music to help fill empty spaces is usually nothing less than superb.  Using the talent of ace cinematographer Harris Savides in his final film (dedicated to his memory), they combine to show what architectural beauty can be expressed by shooting a robbery in progress through a glass house, where the perpetrators are seen as little more than a movement of shadows, but visually it’s a captivating moment.  Coppola is hampered here by the repetitive storyline, reflecting the bored lives of the typically screwed up teenagers who continually return to the same activity like a drug, often seen bragging about their exploits afterwards in upscale clubs, obviously trying to impress others, where they are seen as little more than opportunists in waiting.  Inflating one’s view of oneself is a constant in this film, reflecting the adoring approval received by their parents who wouldn’t think of reprimanding them, allowing them to do whatever they want, as these kids are continually taking photos of themselves with their phones and posting them on their Facebook pages.  This dysfunctional group includes Katie Chang as Rebecca, something of the ringleader, and her adoring follower Marc, Israel Broussard, a not so great looking guy that loves fashion design, so fits right into this culture.  Their best friends include sisters Nicki (Emma Watson) and Sam (Taissa Farmiga with a leopard-skin infatuation), both home-schooled by their clueless mother on how to look their best and think positively, given Adderall every morning for God knows how long, while they’re best friends with the more stoic Chloe (Claire Julien).  All they ever talk about is what people are wearing, as that’s all that seems to matter to them.  This film pales in comparison to Not Fade Away (2012), for instance, a much better written David Chase film featuring teenagers from the 60’s that just knew they would eventually be discovered as rock stars, as they were only waiting for someone to discover them.  Similarly, this group already thinks of themselves as stars simply because they so completely identify with the Hollywood culture of attractiveness and glamour, getting their faces plastered over all the tabloids, and then using that to build a career.  It’s interesting that the choices of who to rob comes from the faces they routinely see in the tabloids and celebrity news TV programs.  

Celebrity worship is nothing new, but this may be the first time kids feel so entitled to be included among the celebrities simply because they can copy their fashion sense and be seen in the same public places.  It’s hard to fathom, but this group has delusions of grandeur, where they feel as if it’s their right to steal clothes from the stars, as emulating their lifestyle is how they’ll be discovered.  What’s missing is any likeable person among the bunch, as all are so hung up on themselves that nobody else matters.  In truth, these are thoroughly detestable people that haven’t a clue what matters in life, as all they’ve learned is to think exclusively about themselves. They have such a high opinion of themselves that their egos take the place of sex, which is also missing in these young kid’s lives.  The idea of communicating with others doesn’t even occur to them, as all they want to do is see themselves in the mirror.  This human contempt grows tiresome after awhile, as there’s little reason why anyone should care about any of the subjects in this film, a similar reaction to Coppola’s earlier candy-colored walk through history with a young empty-headed MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006).  The character of Nicki is actually based upon Alexis Neiers, her younger sister Gabby, and an adopted sister Tess Taylor, all pursuing modeling careers managed by their mother, Andrea Arlington, a former Playboy playmate who claims she modeled lingerie with Cindy Crawford in the 80’s.  They were all subjects of a short-lived Reality TV show Pretty Wild, which aired for two months on the E! Network in the spring of 2010.  Unfortunately, Alexis was arrested by the first episode, becoming a convicted felon, where her melodramatic Diva Queen personality was so overly self-indulgent that its claim to fame may be that it challenges for the worst show to ever air on TV (Pretty Wild Might Be the Worst Television Show Ever Made - Gawker).  Why all of this should appeal to the director, or a viewing audience, is an open question, as whatever satiric slant may have been intended runs thin, where it plays out more as an absurdist caricature of people that just don’t care, where it appears that celebrity culture is already too over-exposed and doesn’t need any more public screen time, as their lives are simply too pathetically empty to be taken seriously.  The question is:  does this film raise a larger issue?  If this is supposed to represent a cultural phenomenon about narcissistic kids growing up today who are simply too infatuated with themselves, showing no interest in the lives of others, there is too much evidence to suggest otherwise, as students and the youth vote played a large part in electing and re-electing the first black President Barack Obama, while children of the elite comprise much of the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  Coppola has always sympathized with kids, much like herself, raised in a bubble who are simply too bored to care, emblematic of their celebrity heroes that show the same vacuous superficiality, but this time she’s hit a wall, never unlocking any revelatory secrets or exposing a social critique that actually matters.

Somewhere

SOMEWHERE         B+                  

USA  (97 mi)  2010  d:  Sofia Coppola      Somewhere Movie Trailer Official (HD)

Feeling very much like an autobiographical work, this quirky expressionistic portrait of aimless characters drifting through the superficiality and ennui of the ultra rich resonates with the director, whose millionaire parents had separation issues during the middle of her childhood sending her into an emotional free for all.  From being cast as Candy Darling in I SHOT ANDY WARHOL (1996), Stephen Dorff shows up here as Johnny Marco, a man who supposedly has everything money can buy, but hasn’t a clue how to find love.  Instead he lives in an upscale luxury hotel, Chateau Marmont of West Hollywood, and pays pole dancers to entertain him whenever he’s bored, or drops into the rooms of seductive single women who give him that look of availability and interest.  Driving a late model Ferrari, he is accustomed to getting what he wants.  When we get a glimpse behind the veneer, however, we discover his life is really empty and rather pathetic. 

When his 11-year old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) drops by, they play video games together or sit around the pool while the soundtrack plays The Strokes - I'll Try Anything Once (3:18) that includes an underwater sequence where they pretend to have a tea party, or swim in the pool in their own private suite, but he barely knows her, not even realizing she’s been taking ice-skating lessons for the past three years, seen skating beautifully to Gwen Stefani’s “Cool,” becoming a graceful and attractive young woman.  This reminded me of the opening of John Cassavetes’ Love Streams (1984), where Cassavetes was sleeping with an entire household of call girls while regularly drinking multiple bottles of champagne every day, leading a life of alcoholism and debauchery, taking responsibility for no one, not even himself, none of which brings him anywhere close to being in love.  For the most part, this is the theme of the film, as Johnny is a self-indulgent movie star who lives the part of a playboy with women throwing themselves at him, and these short term flings constitute his life.  While not exactly flamboyant, it’s indulgent as hell, leaving gaping holes where his reality should be.    

Cleo, however, is adorable the way she skips from room to room, fixes him breakfast in the mornings, twirls around performing ballet swirls, and is generally a smart, well adjusted girl who’s also used to having everything handed to her and getting whatever she wants.  She’s sweet natured and fun to be around, but she falls apart when her mom inexplicably dumps her on Johnny’s doorstep and never indicates when or if she’s coming back.  So he takes her to Italy with him for a press junket promoting a movie, where they fly first class and get transported by a police escorted stretch limousine while receiving luxury accommodations in the finest hotels.  You’d think this would be the life, any kid’s dream, but this so much resembles the sheltered life that she’s used to that it quickly gets tiring, almost immediately retreating back home.  When Johnny takes her in a helicopter ride after a night playing craps in Las Vegas where they meet a waiting taxicab to take her to summer camp, it borders on the ridiculous.  Some kids just have all the advantages. 

Largely a plotless melancholic mood piece that is a breakout role for Elle Fanning, it’s like her coming out party, as her fresh energy really carries the film.  While many will call this a trifle, not really about anything, reality light, or we should have such problems, but Coppola has a deft hand interspersing small moments of realism with her own sense of experimentation and pitch perfect Indie music that really does feel unique, as her use of music is simply outstanding.  The film is pretty much what we see in the two-minute trailer sequence, which is remarkably inventive and features the best songs from the film.  The ensemble acting is genuine, with Chris Pontius as Johnny’s lifelong friend really standing out, feeling very much like improvised scenes, while the measured camerawork by Harris Savides creates an intimate warmth with each character, but the icing on the cake remains the exquisitely chosen musical selections and the original music by Phoenix, where over the end credits we hear Love like a sunset part II by Phoenix Music Video (1:57) and smoke gets in your eyes,bryan ferry (3:04), unique takes on familiar themes.