GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Margot at the Wedding
Paramount Vantage

Margot at the Wedding reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 66 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.0 out of 10
based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 51 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for sexual content and language

Starring Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and John Turturro

Margot at the Wedding is a sharply observed portrait of a family in distress. Noah Baumbach's latest project is an unflinchingly honest story about coming to terms with one's family and oneself, a journey that is both funny and heartbreaking. The film stars Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Jack Black. (Paramount Vantage)


GENRE(S): Comedy  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Noah Baumbach  
DIRECTED BY: Noah Baumbach  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: February 19, 2008 
Theatrical: November 16, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Baumbach’s achievement stings. It also has the sureness of tone and direction of a Chekhov story.
Read Full Review
91
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Which brings us back to Kidman, who really IS sensational here.
Read Full Review
90
The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
Noah Baumbach has followed up his acclaimed 2005 breakthrough "The Squid and the Whale" with another wryly observed, giddily cringe-inducing, bracingly original winner.
Read Full Review
90
Film Threat Niki Foster
A brilliantly executed film that, like many real-life family reunions, is alternately painful, funny, and moving.
Read Full Review
88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Dissenters who see this film as a wallow in self-absorption aren't paying attention. Baumbach is acutely attuned to the droll mind games of smart people who only think they're impervious to feeling.
Read Full Review
88
Premiere Glenn Kenny
Margot is a fleet, strangely enjoyable film, animated by the acuity of Baumbach's perceptions and -- this helps a lot -- the frequent laugh-out-loud wit of his dialogue.
Read Full Review
83
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Margot has a kitchen-sink realism that's genuinely unsettling, like a John Cassavetes movie populated by the hyper-articulate. If nothing else, Baumbach deserves credit for refusing to cozy up to the audience.
Read Full Review
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
While Margot's casual cruelty and the scenes of squirmy discomfort are sometimes painful to watch, the rendering of this disastrous family reunion is seriously, savagely droll.
Read Full Review
80
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Watching Kidman, Leigh and -- in his nutty, damn-the-torpedoes way -- Black as they torment, confound and torture one another amounts to a vicarious thrill ride in human behavior.
Read Full Review
80
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Margot at the Wedding gives its characters (and us) something to laugh about.
Read Full Review
80
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
One of the dark pleasures of "Margot" is watching Kidman and Leigh inhabit these two roles with a fierce passion.
Read Full Review
80
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Hysterically hyperbolic and unpleasant if still witty dissection of family traumas.
Read Full Review
80
Newsweek David Ansen
The cruelly funny Margot at the Wedding shares many of the virtues of "Squid"--it's psychologically astute, sociologically dead on, refreshingly unformulaic--but it's a considerably tougher, less ingratiating movie. People who insist on likable, "sympathetic" protagonists may find it a bitter pill to swallow.
Read Full Review
80
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Frequently brilliant, finally baffling film.
Read Full Review
75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Obviously a movie made by smart and talented people but sometimes you can outsmart yourself.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Bitter, brittle, condescending and petty, the titular character of Margot at the Wedding, fabulously played by Nicole Kidman, is a successful short story writer who resents other people's happiness.
Read Full Review
75
Boston Globe Ty Burr
A broader work than Baumbach's last movie, and it's funnier, too, even as you gasp at the misbehavior.
Read Full Review
75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Some call Margot a comedy. For me, it is a tragedy impaled by comic moments.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
So it goes with the family in this movie. All of its members are engaged in a mutual process of shooting one another down. Watching Margot at the Wedding is like slowing for a gaper's block.
Read Full Review
75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
This is Baumbach's best yet.
Read Full Review
75
Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
The overall effect of the movie is to make you wish there were a statute of limitations on how long maladjusted adults are allowed to blame their parents before it's OK to holler, "Get over it, people!"
Read Full Review
70
Variety Todd McCarthy
This study of a disastrous reunion of two sisters feels more like a collection of arresting scenes than a fully conceived and developed drama.
Read Full Review
70
Village Voice Jim Ridley
Hard as it may be to imagine a comedy that inflicts all the psychic torment of "Cries and Whispers," Baumbach has pulled off a more psychologically acute--and funnier--version of the Bergman pastiches that Woody Allen attempted 30 years ago, with a jumpy, nerve-rattling rhythm all his own.
Read Full Review
70
Slate Dana Stevens
It's too bad Baumbach's movie is already shot, edited, and up there on the screen, because after a few rounds with a red pencil, it could really have been something worth watching.
Read Full Review
63
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
There's plenty to admire in the performances and atmosphere, but the writer-director needed someone to pull him up short.
Read Full Review
60
Empire Liz Beardsworth
A sharply observed but bleak examination of family dysfunction, anchored by solid performances.
Read Full Review
60
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Margot at the Wedding doesn’t develop; it just skips from one squirmy scene to the next.
Read Full Review
50
ReelViews James Berardinelli
While there are a lot of similarities between Rohmer's body of work and Baumbach's latest, the most crucial aspect linking the films is a difference: Rohmer's love of conversation and languorous pace engages the intellect; Baumbach provides a good alternative to an over-the-counter sleep aid.
Read Full Review
50
The New Yorker David Denby
The characters observe no boundaries, and neither does the movie--Baumbach hasn’t worked out the struggle between speaking and withholding, as Bergman did. People simply blurt out scathing remarks, so there’s little power in the revelations and betrayals. “Margot” is sensually as well as dramatically impoverished.
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
For Kidman, it is a one-note performance dictated by the script. Leigh had more dimension to work with and gives the film's most honest performance. Meanwhile, Black, whose job is mostly to deliver comic relief, is completely lost - that is to say, not funny - in the material.
Read Full Review
50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It's a shame to see such dedicated performers flay their psyches in the service of such fundamentally shallow material.
Read Full Review
50
USA Today Claudia Puig
Watching this movie feels a bit like being trapped on a weekend holiday with an unpredictable and seriously unhappy group of people.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
These characters don't seem illuminating at all – just damned annoying and, ultimately, dead boring.
Read Full Review
40
Austin Chronicle Steve Davis
The next time he (Baumbach) attempts something similar, he might take care to lessen the bile and amplify the heart.
Read Full Review
30
Time Richard Schickel
This is moviemaking for people who don't much like movies unless they are -- you know -- "serious." It is visually inert. It appears to be taking up small-scaled, yet emotionally resonant issues, but does not actually define them sharply or bring them to firm conclusions.
Read Full Review
25
New York Post Lou Lumenick
I've had root canals that were more enjoyable than Margot at the Wedding, Noah Baumbach's hugely pretentious, ugly and annoying follow-up to "The Squid and the Whale."
Read Full Review
0
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Margot at the Wedding is a Christmas gift for high-class depressives: a compendium of malaise fit for an L.L. Bean catalog.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 51 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ray S. gave it a2:
All the characters in this flick need to be in therapy. No insights gleaned from their rantings. Cannot recommend this travesty.

John N. gave it a5:
The film is well acted, but the characters are so abrasive that I can't really say I enjoyed watching it.

Jason F. gave it a10:
Baumbach's has an incredible gift of giving genuine life to characters, their flaws glaring and painful even as you fall in love them.

Brett R gave it a9:
Nicole Kidman is back in a big way with fantastic choices and Jennifer Jason Leigh is an amazing compliment to her playing her sister. I found the writing fascinating, though I found the subplot of "coming of age" of Kidman's son a little tired.

Jay H. gave it a6:
Better than average dysfunctional family film. Well written and the cast is very good, especially Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black. It has an appealing offbeat quality to it, thanks to a good job by director Noah Baumbach.

Mike D. gave it a1:
This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Not just a chick flick, but a pointless, self-indulgent chick flick.

Orlando gave it an8:
Fearless acting, superbly written and excellent directing in this outstanding film about family interactions, parenting, and the natures of family loving.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use