Margot At The Wedding

Baumbach's interest in families - a distinct Baumbachian sort of family - is acute and his observations often painful and delivered with a dry wit.

Kidman's performance keeps you transfixed all the way through, because she delves into her character's damaged psyche so fully, you're constantly fascinated to see what biting, acidic thing she will say next.

Apart from John Turturro in a cameo, all the characters are monsters and/or basket cases.

There isn't a pleasant, wholly likable character in the cast. But you can't avert your eyes from it.

Writer-director Noah Baumbach solidifies his standing as the modern bard of American dysfunctional families with Margot at the Wedding, but at the same time he's recycling material he's already covered, and covered more exquisitely.

There's no question Baumbach has a way with words and actors (Kidman, Leigh and Jack Black are terrific).

As in the minutely observed anatomy of a divorce in The Squid and the Whale, the pleasures and pains of Margot reside in the smallness of scope and queasy focus on delicate family matters.

Who the hell names their son Claude? Do they want him to get beat up every day of his life?

Noah Baumbach’s entry into the dysfunctional-family sweepstakes is a successfully depressing affair that has some genuine laughs to maintain interest while the fake relationships that dominate every scene leave the viewer as estranged as the char

The raw, real centerpiece is the relationship between Kidman and Leigh, whose performances drive the film.

No one does bad parent movies better than Noah Baumbach.