Nic's knack for gritty role

NOAH Baumbach is a director who writes his own material, not a commonplace job description in American cinema.

Margot at the Wedding (M) 3 stars National release Bella (PG) 2 stars Limited national release NOAH Baumbach is a director who writes his own material. That may seem a commonplace job description, but in American cinema most directors don't write their films.

The best of those who do, such as Woody Allen, are clever enough to employ first-class cinematographers, editors and production designers to help transform their words into that elusive thing, a successful film.

Baumbach's work is more prosaic. For him, you feel, the words are more important than the visuals. His debut, Kicking and Screaming (1995), about a bunch of perpetual students and their sex lives, came out about the same time as the Australian movie Love and other Catastrophes, which was similar in many ways and more successful overall.

Baumbach's greatest triumph to date has been The Squid and the Whale (2005), a lacerating drama about a couple breaking up and the effect this has on their sons. The screenplay scored an Oscar nomination and the acting (Laura Linney, Jeff Daniels and others) was impeccable, but the film lacked an interesting cinematic style. Nevertheless, since good writers are hard to find, it comes as no surprise to discover Nicole Kidman playing a role in Baumbach's new film, Margot at the Wedding.

Though she is rarely given credit by members of the media pack who seem determined to make her private life a misery, Kidman is an actor of unusual range and complexity, and she is bold in the choices she makes.

She is rarely seen in the kind of Hollywood trash in which so many of her American peers participate. That she has worked with directors such as Gus Van Sant, Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer, Steven Shainberg -- all demanding auteurs -- shows a commendably risky attitude on her part. She even appeared in Dogville for Lars Von Trier, a choice few other stars of her status would have made.

Margot, her character in Baumbach's film, isn't a particularly pleasant woman. She's a writer of short stories ("well known to a very few people"), and it's clear from the start that she's controlling and opinionated. We first meet her on a train as she travels with her young son Claude (Zane Pais) from New York to attend the wedding of her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

Even before she reaches the seaside house where Pauline is living with her husband-to-be, Malcolm (Jack Black), Margot is talking herself into opposing the wedding, and when she arrives it's obvious that she wasn't expected and, probably, wasn't particularly wanted.

Malcolm is a crude, obese, would-be artist, and Margot immediately thinks of him as a lazy slob. But Pauline, pregnant and about to embark on her second marriage, is not in the mood for sisterly advice. Pauline has a daughter from her first marriage, Ingrid (Flora Cross), who is about the same age as the painfully shy Claude.

It quickly becomes obvious that Margot is no shining light in the relationship stakes. She has not encouraged her husband, Jim (John Turturro), to make the trip with her: he turns up anyway, briefly, rather pathetically bearing a gift. Pauline rightly suspects her sister has other fish to fry: a former and potentially future lover, Dick (Ciaran Hinds), is a writer who lives locally.

Dick's daughter, Maisy (Halley Feiffer), is a precocious teenager who has just discovered the power of her sexuality. Add to this mix some disagreeable neighbours and you have the potential for some powerful emotional drama, especially in the scenes in which Kidman and Jason Leigh (who is married to the writer-director) are in full cry.

In the end the film succeeds or fails on these two performances and both actors are magnificent. Even so, by the end we're really none the wiser about why this family is so dysfunctional, which rather undercuts the drama. The strangely unsatisfying conclusion doesn't help. The actors are all excellent, though, and for many that will be sufficient.

***FILM festivals are great places to discover films but the reactions of audiences can be deceiving. The audience winner at Toronto in 2006 was Bella, an independently produced American film from director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde.

Jose (Eduardo Verastegui) is a former soccer player who quit after he accidentally killed a little girl while driving his car. He works as a chef in his brother's smart Manhattan restaurant and the wafer-thin plot explores his involvement with Nina (Tammy Blanchard), a waitress fired by his brother after arriving late two days in a row.

Nina's lateness is explained by her getting a pregnancy test, which she surely could have obtained outside working hours. If she had done the logical thing there would have been no movie, but plot contrivances such as this can ruin a film.

Though he scarcely knows her, Jose walks out in solidarity (my sympathies were entirely with the brother) and spends the rest of the day hanging out with her, eventually taking her home to meet his folks.

If this is supposed to be charming, it's a charm many will find elusive: too much is taken for granted and the director relies heavily on the personalities of his actors (Verastegui is a pop star in Mexico). If not for the accolades of the Canadian festival-goers, this exceedingly modest film would barely have seen the light of day.