Frozen out

Kidman leaves Margot at the Wedding with a cold center | Meghan Keane

The affection that director Noah Baumbach feels for his characters often negates the affectations he burdens them with. In his latest film, Margot at the Wedding (rated R for language and sexual content), characters are drowned by their own flaws, quirks, and damages.

The story centers on Margot (Nicole Kidman, pictured) and her adolescent son Claude (Zane Pais) as they travel to the Hamptons for her sister Pauline's wedding at their parents' home. From the beginning Margot lashes out at everyone within earshot.

Kidman's Margot is all sharp edges and contradictions. At times needy, solitary, and cruel, her intellect is intended to outshine her flaws, but we are not privy to her strengths on screen. A successful short story writer, Margot at once attracts and repels everyone around her. The continued interest in her seems less motivated by love than habit, but we never learn how these habits formed.

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November 24, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 43

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