A 2007 film from Noah Baumbach that features Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Ciaran Hinds ought to be on to something. But instead you'll most likely wonder if it's on something...
Obviously, there's acting talent on display here, but a tension-between-sisters story doesn't go that far, as in the end the sisters do at least tolerate each other, and occasionally do better than that. Kidman as Margot does not approve of potential husband for her sister Malcolm (Black), and Malcolm is not the kind of character you especially warm to - but then there is nobody in that category present here at all, and both sisters have certain issues with their offspring - that's a desperately-in-need-of-a-haircut Zane Pais, and Flora Cross, as Claude and Ingrid respectively (shades of Casablanca, then? Sorry, not really).
Nevertheless, the viewer here has a slightly uncomfortable feeling that Claude and Ingrid might indeed become kissing cousins, just as one has an uncomfortable feeling that Margot treats son Claude as too much of an adult, while simultaneously being over-protective, but then - at a whim - also extremely dismissive and hurtful towards her only offspring. Indeed, at one moment in the film she has an offhand moment of incoherence in which she seems to suggest Claude might actually be her sister's son!
The movie is in fact replete with this kind of thing. We have (yet another) uncomfortable feeling that the neighbours here (the Vogel family) are up to some really sinister, possibly child-abusive or otherwise sick things, while Malcolm has a (bit of a) thing for the baby-sitter, who also at one point tries it on with Claude (supposedly just 11 years old, though you wouldn't get this from the film at all). We also get a bit of Jack Black buttock, a bit of sex, Margot masturbating, the butchering of a pig, crude words, suggested drugs and various other "stuff" - hence the entirely justificable overall conclusion of exploitation to no good purpose.
All of this means that the film is suggestive of genres it never reaches, and probably never intended or wanted to reach - hence its irritatingly fake appearance over all. Probably the main thing going on here is actually the way in which the controlling "superior sister" Margot is actually less competent as a human being than her sibling Pauline, and in fact on the verge of breakdown. Since both sisters were apparently abused by their father, and since there is a passive mother still alive out there somewhere, we know why the sisters may be as they are, but can we really summon the energy to give a fig about that?
All of that means a reasonably well-done part for Kidman, and indeed for most cast members ... but what of it really?
Obviously, there's acting talent on display here, but a tension-between-sisters story doesn't go that far, as in the end the sisters do at least tolerate each other, and occasionally do better than that. Kidman as Margot does not approve of potential husband for her sister Malcolm (Black), and Malcolm is not the kind of character you especially warm to - but then there is nobody in that category present here at all, and both sisters have certain issues with their offspring - that's a desperately-in-need-of-a-haircut Zane Pais, and Flora Cross, as Claude and Ingrid respectively (shades of Casablanca, then? Sorry, not really).
Nevertheless, the viewer here has a slightly uncomfortable feeling that Claude and Ingrid might indeed become kissing cousins, just as one has an uncomfortable feeling that Margot treats son Claude as too much of an adult, while simultaneously being over-protective, but then - at a whim - also extremely dismissive and hurtful towards her only offspring. Indeed, at one moment in the film she has an offhand moment of incoherence in which she seems to suggest Claude might actually be her sister's son!
The movie is in fact replete with this kind of thing. We have (yet another) uncomfortable feeling that the neighbours here (the Vogel family) are up to some really sinister, possibly child-abusive or otherwise sick things, while Malcolm has a (bit of a) thing for the baby-sitter, who also at one point tries it on with Claude (supposedly just 11 years old, though you wouldn't get this from the film at all). We also get a bit of Jack Black buttock, a bit of sex, Margot masturbating, the butchering of a pig, crude words, suggested drugs and various other "stuff" - hence the entirely justificable overall conclusion of exploitation to no good purpose.
All of this means that the film is suggestive of genres it never reaches, and probably never intended or wanted to reach - hence its irritatingly fake appearance over all. Probably the main thing going on here is actually the way in which the controlling "superior sister" Margot is actually less competent as a human being than her sibling Pauline, and in fact on the verge of breakdown. Since both sisters were apparently abused by their father, and since there is a passive mother still alive out there somewhere, we know why the sisters may be as they are, but can we really summon the energy to give a fig about that?
All of that means a reasonably well-done part for Kidman, and indeed for most cast members ... but what of it really?