"jealousy is rife, and with that comes plenty of childish back stabbing, though the cause for this is never clear"

A severely dysfunctional family, an interesting mix of cast (Jack Black opposite Nicole Kidman?!) and the critically acclaimed director Noah Baumbach, best known for his art-house offering The squid and the Whale, got me excited about this "family drama". Unfortunately that excitement soon wore off.

The story focuses around a family reunion. Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her quickly maturing son Claude (Zane Pais) return to the family home to attend Margot's sister's (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding to Malcolm (Jack Black). Of course there's endless room for clashes; Margot is a neurotic New York City writer, ever critical of her pseudo bohemian sister, and openly disapproves of her fiance, a beer swigging, severely unstable out of work artist. Jealousy is rife, and with that comes plenty of childish back stabbing, though the cause for this is never clear.

On top of that, it seems that Margot's real reason for attending the wedding is to promote her book and spend time with her lover (Ciaran Hinds), while her husband (John Turturro) attempts to re-ignite the passion with a gift of slippers. There's also some neo Nazi neighbors and the totally un-sexy baby sitter, whom nevertheless all the men are crazy about - presumably because she's not quite as messed up yet.

All this sounds like a recipe for an insightful indie flick, exploring what motivates people to badly hurt those we love the most, right? But unfortunately all these relationships never develop past innuendo, and the characters are so unlikable you don't really care what happens to them. Thank goodness for the mostly superb cast, who despite the script's lack of depth managed to make me believe that they really were all part of the same screwed up family. Go see this for the refreshingly bleak yet sharp cinematography, but be warned: it will grate on you in all the wrong ways.