Margot at the Wedding

Nicole Kidman returns to her dark side—the one she has played so well in movies like To Die For—as Margot, a short-story writer who takes her son (Zane Pais) on a dysfunctional visit to her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is a bit of a lost soul about to marry her slacker musician boyfriend (Jack Black). The sister-sister dynamic on view is such that Margot makes it abundantly clear that she thinks the guy is a loser and immediately clashes with sis head-on about the whole thing. At its heart, it's really a family story about two siblings growing apart from each other who still have a connection, no matter how fucked up things are between them. Writer/director Noah Baumbach likes delving into this kind of upper-middle-class intellectualism/mayhem, and is back in the same kind of territory he traveled so effectively in the little-seen The Squid and the Whale. This one is generally smart, stylish fun, which is certainly unlike any other comedy we've seen this year. It's a true original—a wry, devastatingly witty look at a family you won't soon forget, no matter how hard you try. It's too bad that the film is photographed like there was no light available. You really struggle to see the performances through the smoky filters, but they are worth searching out. Kidman and Black (he's restrained, but goofy) bring their "A" game into play here. They're terrific, but the movie is stolen by Leigh, who has never had a role to show off her talents like this one. She runs an emotional obstacle course that is simply dazzling to watch. This is definitely not going to rock everyone's boat, but it's a nice year-end surprise for anyone adventurous enough to look for something different.