NIKKI says:What has happened to Noah Baumbach? He used to be clever and insightful. He used to make movies about human beings, believable ones with foibles and idiosyncrasies you could relate to. He used to create characters just like you, and you laughed with them because you'd been there: Young, crazy, insecure, jealous, in love.
Now he just makes movies about reprehensible people who talk and act in ways I've never encountered. Perhaps I'm from the wrong side of Brooklyn, but I just don't know these people.
So, I understand there are crackpots out there. I also understand there are damaged men and women floating on this planet that crave destruction, of themselves or those around them, that thrive on the devastation they create. I also know there are people out there who remains utterly blind to the machinations of others, or who choose to ignore it because the pain of confrontation is just so great. I get that. What I don't get is why I'm supposed to find a story about those people that never seeks to explain them, explore them, or redeem them anything but a waste of my time.
Further, why do I want to watch a movie about these people with no discernible plot, with no beginning, middle, or end? So we open with Margot on the bus, and we leave with her on the bus. In the middle, we just get bunches of random, unexplained activities that do very little to enhance the story or its characters. It just smacked of that much pretension. Watching Margot climb the tree was embarrassing. Watching her do just about anything was embarrassing. I was forced to question how she'd ever succeeded at anything in her life. She was so horribly abusing her son with her esteem-destroying comments that I wondered how they'd even managed to co-exist together for any length of time. Why did her husband care for her? She was never presented to us as anything but a monster. How and why did anyone care enough to give her the time of day?
Is abuse in her past supposed to explain her? Make us feel sorry for her? That part of the story was alluded to and dismissed -- if the movie didn't care to go into it, did it even matter?
What good does it do me to involve myself with these people for an hour and a half? What am I supposed to get from this? A woman rolls into town and sets about destroying her sister's marriage, does that, then leaves. She leaves NOT KNOWING that her sister was about to rekindle the destroyed relationship. So, somehow everyone gets what they want, but no-one really ever comes to know why. Why did Margot have to destroy Pauline? What does it mean to her that it ultimately didn't work? How is Margot's derangement supposed to affect me when SHE WAS RIGHT from the outset that Malcolm wasn't perfect?
Why does Margot get to be right?
Ugh -- the whole thing just infuriated me. Kicking and Screaming remains an American classic. Mr. Jealousy will always be watchable and wonderful. Everything beyond that can go to hell.
1/5
STEVE says:
Noah Baumbach is dead to me.
Kicking and Screaming is and will always remain one of my favorite movies, but everything he's made afterwards has left me questioning whether he should be allowed continued access to film making equipment.
This is just revolting.
1/5
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