Am I Missing Something?

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I'm a fan of his films, Greenberg is bitter and undeniably hilarious. Mistress America and Frances Ha are quirky and have a peculiar sense of humor but it gets to you. They are more indie in the sense that the plot revolves around young people realizing themselves, in one way or another. In this film none of the protagonists seem to have that effect on you. They are selfish and ridiculous in the bad sense of the word. The theme was interesting, family members wanting to help and forcing their opinions down on you, however the choice of actors IMO was poorly executed and Nicole Kidman could have done a better job or had have a supporting actress that would have taken the importance away from her. There were some scenes that were funny but overall I did not enjoy the film nor would I watch it again.

This is a fascinating fly-on-the-wall film about dysfunctional sisters, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, husband of Jennifer Jason Leigh, who plays one of the sisters. It is interesting to see Nicole Kidman, the other sister, wholly out-classed by Leigh, who acts circles round her. Kidman is not easy to steal scenes from, but Leigh does this without even trying. No matter how attractive, arch-browed, pensive, thoughtfully-leaning, and lens-loving Kidman is, no matter how many times she tilts her head to one side and invites our enraptured gaze, no matter how many screen tricks she pulls to make everybody watch her in preference to everybody else, she fails. Leigh just has the magic. We stare at her instead, even when she slouches, looks a mess, and is after all only a tiny creature compared to the more statuesque Kidman. I declare an interest in saying this, however, because I suspect Leigh must be my favourite actress. And so maybe I want to justify my opinion of her by always insisting she puts others in the shade. Anyone who saw her in WASHINGTON SQUARE (1997, see my review) however cannot possibly deny that she is a genius, can they? Is it possible for anyone not to recognise that Leigh is way out there ahead of the pack? There are other things in her favour besides her talent. She has integrity. I can never forgive Jodie Foster and Julia Roberts for appearing in those two horrible films PRETTY WOMAN (1990) and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991). I regard those films not merely as wicked but as evil. One of them glorified prostitution and made us think it was OK for the cute little girl next door-type to be a hooker, and the other glorified a cannibal psychopath and made it both fashionable and acceptable to kill people and eat them. Am I the only person in the world who recognises the immorality of those films? Are we so decadent in our society that we are numb to the inadmissible? Jennifer Jason Leigh rejected both of those roles and refused to appear in those films, so that Jodie Foster and Julia Roberts were left to pick up the vomit and drink it. Leigh therefore qualifies as a heroine, not just as a brilliant actress. As for this film, the sound quality is not always up to scratch because the film's 'French New Wave' directorial style meant the camera was always moving around and it is difficult to mike people when they are intimately mumbling to each other while the camera keeps circling and dodging. I would say that the directing did manage a fresh and alive quality by all this frenetic shifting about, and it did succeed in making this a very desperate 'slice of life' indeed. There is plenty of black comedy, but then, when did families ever not generate black comedy in their daily lives? The other outstanding performance in this film is by child actor Zane Pais, who plays the boy who is ostensibly Kidman's son but more probably the son of Leigh, who could not cope at the time and handed him over to her sister to bring up instead. Although this is only hinted at, it seems the most likely answer to some riddles of the story. I wonder why Baumbach played it down so much. Pais is absolutely brilliant, and his performance goes far towards making this film work. I wonder why he has only appeared in this one film. He has a strange androgynous quality, and at first with his long hair I thought he was a girl. I thought that John Turturro and Ciaran Hinds as the two men in Kidman's life were both pretty creepy, but perhaps they were meant to be. Flora Cross was very good as the young girl Ingrid, but she didn't have much of a scripted part. As for Jack Black, well, what do I say? He was very good of course, funny and engaging. But he is no looker and how are we expected to believe that a gorgeous gal like Leigh would want to marry him? Was Baumbach afraid to cast his wife opposite a more convincing love match? The casting of all the men in this film is bizarre to say the least, and one wonders what Baumbach was getting at. The neighbours from hell named Vogler were convincing, but I think overdone. I did not understand why it was necessary to cut down that nice tree. There are numerous aspects of the film which puzzled me. Well, it was Baumbach's 'thing' and directors will be directors and director-writers will be director-writers, you know how it is.

Author Kidman brings her teen son along to her childhood house in Long Island, NY for a weekend - mainly to attend her estranged sister's (Leigh) planned wedding to slacker Black. Least to say, nothing goes as foreseen, as the dysfunctional family personalities clash and their broken skeletons practically dance out of the closet.No easy watch here, as writer/director Noah Baumbach brings us a most dour and dense family drama that really puts the wiever like the fly-on-the-wall. Frantically paced and edited, shot mostly on hand-held camera, this is definitely not without its assets (including strong, gutsy performances and story unpredictability), but suffers mostly from Neurotica Exhaustion as the anguish is being non-stop thrown in your face. Sometimes it's funny just because laughter is the only way out of the claustrophobic atmosphere of its emotionally wrenching characters. Dialog is memorable, but so edgily candid and aloof that it's hardly realistic. And how many characters do we really have strength left enough to care for in the end? Nice to hear some old Blondie songs, though! 5 out of 10 from Ozjeppe

It may be the dumbest movie I have seen. It started off confusing. Then there was the scene where the kid tells mom he masturbated. The dog got away. Then he came back, after Jack Black admitted he was a pedophile while cutting down the tree. There was an unnecessary character, the daughter of someone, and she was nearly killed by that tree. Another dog was hit and nearly killed by a car. The crazy girl getting married said I love you, then she said I hate you. I love you. I hate you, and your sister and I talk behind your back. The adults spoke to the children like they were adults, which is not very believable. I lost precious time to this movie. I want it back. I just feel dirty now. My girlfriend says the guy made another movie, and I said he should have quit while he was ahead. Then she tells me the other movie came after this one! That is unbelievable. I don't see why actors would line up for these roles.