Currylingus

As if I needed reminding about the nature of my misanthropic, corroded, husk of a soul.

Hai Bhagwaan, I hate everyone in this movie. Margot, the didactic bish; her son Claude, an amazing piece of Styrofoam, formed of freak amino acids; his estranged aunt Pauline, in all her moody and gutless splendour; and, her fiancé Malcolm, the resident buffoon. Any remaining characters don’t really matter, and serve only to further my disdain for all humanity as seen through Baumbach’s eyes.

Taking on unsavoury pasts and bitter sisters, the plot turns predictable but its specifics are humorous. In a particularly catchy first half, the two sisters are seen openly melting into cesspools of passive-aggression through varying stages of sobriety, aided wonderfully by the extended clan. Hooray for neuroses. I was never one to resist the charms of catty wenches.

Done-to-death family dysfunction works in this flick for two reasons: Acting and style. The casting is divine. Nicole Kidman is perfectly believable as a self-absorbed asshole. Jennifer Jason-Leigh can never harm, in my opinion. Jack Black, is, well, funny. Also, John Turturro needs to be in every film that is ever made. These players are complemented by wicked harsh shot-cuts. Chopping into the middle of dramatic crescendos, handheld shaking, dark autumn colours that made me shiver with thoughts of East-coast wind. All of this created a mighty tempo to push along a script that is happy to meander, albeit in interesting ways.

I was disappointed with the ending. It was probably trying to make some sort of mysterious, open-ended statement, about happiness or such, but I got none of that. It was left incomplete. I feel this way because the first half left me longing for more evil dialogue, more funnies, and more absurdity. As the film slipped into convention, I fell out of blind love and into affectionate “meh” territory. I mean that as a glitterati “meh”, which is to say that I quite enjoyed my viewing experience but have my head stuck too far up my own arse to make more of an effort with my adjectives.

Labels: Phillum