Margot at the Wedding

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Baumbach’s achievement stings. It also has the sureness of tone and direction of a Chekhov story.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Which brings us back to Kidman, who really IS sensational here.

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.

Film Threat Niki Foster

A brilliantly executed film that, like many real-life family reunions, is alternately painful, funny, and moving.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Margot at the Wedding gives its characters (and us) something to laugh about.

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.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Hysterically hyperbolic and unpleasant if still witty dissection of family traumas.

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.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Frequently brilliant, finally baffling film.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Obviously a movie made by smart and talented people but sometimes you can outsmart yourself.

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.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A broader work than Baumbach's last movie, and it's funnier, too, even as you gasp at the misbehavior.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Some call Margot a comedy. For me, it is a tragedy impaled by comic moments.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

This is Baumbach's best yet.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

Empire Liz Beardsworth

A sharply observed but bleak examination of family dysfunction, anchored by solid performances.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Margot at the Wedding doesn’t develop; it just skips from one squirmy scene to the next.

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.

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.

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's a shame to see such dedicated performers flay their psyches in the service of such fundamentally shallow material.

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.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

These characters don't seem illuminating at all – just damned annoying and, ultimately, dead boring.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

The next time he (Baumbach) attempts something similar, he might take care to lessen the bile and amplify the heart.

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.

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."

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.