Margot at the Wedding
Encyclopedia
Margot at the Wedding is a 2007
tragicomedy
written and directed by Noah Baumbach
.
The film premiered August 31, 2007 at the 34th Telluride Film Festival
.
) is a successful but neurotic
writer who brings her 11-year-old son Claude (Zane Pais) to spend a weekend visiting her free-spirited sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh
) on the eve of her wedding to Malcolm (Jack Black
). Margot disapproves of Pauline's choice of fiancé, which causes tension between the two sisters.
locations including Shelter Island
, Hampton Bays, East Quogue, Long Island
and City Island, Bronx
.
The script's working title was Nicole at the Beach, but it was changed when Kidman signed on.
. It was also shown at the Toronto Film Festival, the New York Film Festival
, and the Mill Valley Film Festival
. The film opened in limited release
in the United States
on November 16, 2007. It opened in the United Kingdom
on February 8, 2008 and at two cinemas in Melbourne, Australia
on February 21, 2008.
and Britta Phillips
acted as the film's music consultants, and the film "features the more obscure singer-songwriters that Baumbach
is obsessed with...like 70's post-Dylan
folkie Steve Forbert
, British singer-songwriter and occasional Pink Floyd
guest Lesley Duncan
, Brooklyn born singer songwriter Evie Sands
(covered both Beck
and Beth Orton
) and New York Anti-folk artist Diane Cluck
."
reported that 52 percent of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 153 reviews. Metacritic
reported the film had an average score of 66 out of 100, based on 37 reviews.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
of the Chicago Reader named it the sixth best film of the year in a tie of a dozen mainstream releases. Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer
named it the 7th best film of 2007, Scott Foundas of LA Weekly
named it the 8th best film of 2007, and Kyle Smith
of the New York Post
named it the 9th best film of 2007.
and Canada
.
The film has made US$2,897,757 worldwide.
2007 in film
This is a list of major films released in 2007.-Top grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2007...
tragicomedy
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
written and directed by Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach is an American writer, director and independent filmmaker.-Background and education:Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987 and ...
.
The film premiered August 31, 2007 at the 34th Telluride Film Festival
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
.
Plot
Margot (Nicole KidmanNicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
) is a successful but neurotic
Neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...
writer who brings her 11-year-old son Claude (Zane Pais) to spend a weekend visiting her free-spirited sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
) on the eve of her wedding to Malcolm (Jack Black
Jack Black
Jack Black , is an American actor and musician, notably of Tenacious D.Jack Black may also refer to:* Jack Black , late 19th - early 20th Century author and hobo* Jack Black , drummer for 1970s UK punk band The Boys...
). Margot disapproves of Pauline's choice of fiancé, which causes tension between the two sisters.
Cast
- Nicole KidmanNicole KidmanNicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
as Margot - Jennifer Jason LeighJennifer Jason LeighJennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
as Pauline - Jack BlackJack BlackJack Black , is an American actor and musician, notably of Tenacious D.Jack Black may also refer to:* Jack Black , late 19th - early 20th Century author and hobo* Jack Black , drummer for 1970s UK punk band The Boys...
as Malcolm - John TurturroJohn TurturroJohn Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...
as Jim - Ciarán HindsCiarán HindsCiarán Hinds is an Irish film, television and stage actor. He has built up a reputation as a versatile character actor appearing in such high profile films as Road to Perdition, The Phantom of the Opera, Munich, There Will Be Blood and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. His television roles include...
as Dick Koosman - Halley FeifferHalley FeifferHalley Feiffer is an American actress and playwright.-Education and family:Feiffer graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007...
as Maisy Koosman - Seth Barrish as Toby
- Michael CullenMichael Cullen (actor)Michael Cullen is an American actor who usually works in New York City. He has worked on stage and also has appeared in many films. His most famous stage role is that of baseball legend Ty Cobb. On television, he has many roles to his credit, including three appearances as James Dietz in Law &...
as Mr. Volger - Enid Graham as Mrs. Volger
- Zane Pais as Claude
- Flora CrossFlora CrossFlora Cross is a French-American actress.- Personal life :Cross was born in Paris, France. Her father, Joseph Cross, is a journalist. Flora is Jewish. She has traveled extensively with her family, most recently to Argentina where she lived for two years. She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA...
as Ingrid
Production
Margot at the Wedding was shot from April-June 2006 in various New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
locations including Shelter Island
Shelter Island (town), New York
Shelter Island is a town and island at the eastern end of Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. It forms the tip of Suffolk County and is separated from the rest of the county by water. The population was 2,228 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
, Hampton Bays, East Quogue, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
and City Island, Bronx
City Island, Bronx
City Island is a small island approximately 1.5 mi long by .5 mi wide. At one time attached to the town of Pelham, Westchester County, it is now part of the New York City borough of the Bronx. As of the 2000 census the island had a population of 4,520. Its land area is 1.023 km²...
.
The script's working title was Nicole at the Beach, but it was changed when Kidman signed on.
Release
The film premiered August 31, 2007 at the 34th Telluride Film FestivalTelluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
. It was also shown at the Toronto Film Festival, the New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
, and the Mill Valley Film Festival
Mill Valley Film Festival
The Mill Valley Film Festival is an annual, non-competitive film festival presented by the California Film Institute. Known as a filmmakers’ festival, the annual Mill Valley Film Festival offers a non-competitive environment for exhibiting independent and world cinema.Founded in 1978 by MVFF...
. The film opened in limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on November 16, 2007. It opened in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on February 8, 2008 and at two cinemas in Melbourne, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on February 21, 2008.
Soundtrack
Dean WarehamDean Wareham
Dean Wareham is an American musician, who formed the band Galaxie 500 in 1987. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Wareham moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia, before settling in New York City in 1977. Wareham attended high school at Dalton School in New York, and then attended Harvard...
and Britta Phillips
Britta Phillips
Britta Phillips is an American musician, songwriter, actress and voice actor. She is best known as the singing voice of the title character of Jem and as one half of the duo Dean and Britta, with her husband Dean Wareham...
acted as the film's music consultants, and the film "features the more obscure singer-songwriters that Baumbach
Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach is an American writer, director and independent filmmaker.-Background and education:Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987 and ...
is obsessed with...like 70's post-Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
folkie Steve Forbert
Steve Forbert
Steve Forbert is an American pop music singer-songwriter. He is best known for his song "Romeo's Tune", which reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1980....
, British singer-songwriter and occasional Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
guest Lesley Duncan
Lesley Duncan
Lesley Duncan was an English singer-songwriter, best known for her work during the 1970s. She received a lot of airplay on British radio stations such as BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2, but never achieved great commercial success.Duncan was born in Stockton-on-Tees...
, Brooklyn born singer songwriter Evie Sands
Evie Sands
Evie Sands is a Brooklyn-born singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose career began as a young teenager in the mid-1960s...
(covered both Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
and Beth Orton
Beth Orton
Beth Orton is a BRIT Award–winning English singer-songwriter, known for her 'folktronica' sound, which mixes elements of folk and electronica. She was initially recognised for her collaborations with William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers in the mid 1990s. However, these were not Orton's first...
) and New York Anti-folk artist Diane Cluck
Diane Cluck
Diane Cluck is an American singer and songwriter of intuitive folk. Although known as a solo performer, she has often collaborated with others, including a recent association with drummer Anders Griffen on tours in the US and UK....
."
- "Northern Blue" by Dean Wareham & Britta Phillips
- "Romeo's Tune" by Steve Forbert
- "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" performed by Jack Black
- "Genesis" by Jorma Kaukonen
- "One Fine Summer Morning" performed by Evie Sands
- "Goin' Down to Laurel" by Steve Forbert
- "The Wagon" by Dinosaur Jr.
- "Dear Mary" by Steve Miller Band
- "See How We Are" performed by X
- "Sunday Girl" performed by Zane Pais
- "Everything Changes" by Lesley Duncan
- "Union City Blue" by Blondie
- "You and Me" by Alice Cooper
- "Clair" by Gilbert O'Sullivan
- "Easy to Be Around" by Diane Cluck
- "Nothing Is Wrong" performed by The dB's
- "That's All For Everyone" by Fleetwood Mac
- "On and On" performed by Michael Medeiros
- "Teen Angel" by Donovan
- "Something on Your Mind" performed by Karen Dalton
Critical
Critics gave the film mixed to generally favorable reviews. , the review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 52 percent of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 153 reviews. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reported the film had an average score of 66 out of 100, based on 37 reviews.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
of the Chicago Reader named it the sixth best film of the year in a tie of a dozen mainstream releases. Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
named it the 7th best film of 2007, Scott Foundas of LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
named it the 8th best film of 2007, and Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....
of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
named it the 9th best film of 2007.
Box office
The film has grossed US$1,995,043 in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
The film has made US$2,897,757 worldwide.
Awards and nominations
| Award | Category | Recipients and nominees | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts... |
|
| Satellite Award | Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy | Nicole Kidman Nicole Kidman Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm... |
|
| Satellite Award for Best Film – Musical or Comedy | Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach is an American writer, director and independent filmmaker.-Background and education:Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987 and ... |
||
| Independent Spirit Award | Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female | Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts... |
|
| Gotham Awards Gotham Awards 2007 -Best Ensemble Cast: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris, Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brian F. O'Byrne, Amy Ryan, Michael Shannon, Marisa Tomei... |
Best Ensemble Cast | Cast | |
| Best Film | Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach is an American writer, director and independent filmmaker.-Background and education:Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987 and ... |
||
| Peñíscola Comedy Film Festival Peñíscola Peníscola or Peñíscola is a municipality in the province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. The town is located on the Costa del Azahar, north of the Serra d'Irta along the Mediterranean coast... |
Best Actress | Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts... |
|
| Best Director | Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach is an American writer, director and independent filmmaker.-Background and education:Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987 and ... |
||