I had seen Margot at the Wedding in a theater when it came out sometime around 2007, and having taken note of the masturbating scene at the time, remembered it recently as I was trying to think of movies I could review. I actually like this movie, despite it's typical-ness. It's got a classic "indie" style in that it's kinda slow and when the characters talk, they seem to use words that are too big to use in normal conversation, and they all have a sort of casual, depressive air where they either don't respond verbally to almost anything or they just easily and randomly give out too much personal information at every possible turn. This movie favors the later, TMI approach. Both ways, if I might say so, usually seem slightly contrived to me. I actually think that Jack Black as the soon to be groom is what helped balance the feel of this movie. He was tuned down for sure (which is a good thing), but his personality shone through just enough to balance out the over-used "indie" depressive stylings.
It was also a movie that stared a woman (Nichole Kidman) and focused on her relationships - with her son, her sister, her husband, strangers, so I certainly appreciate a female centered movie in this world of ours that has very little of those. Anyway, I think overall there really is a humanity and realness in this movie that is refreshing, and if you don't have problems getting past the whiny, white, I'm-kinda-depressed drama that is such a hallmark of "indie" movies (and especially Noah Baumbach movies) then I'd recommend this one.
Okay, maybe this isn't as short a post as I had planned at the beginning, but anyway here's the details on the masturbation scene. Nichole Kidman is staying at her sisters house prior to the wedding. There were people over for dinner. We see the kids head to bed, and then we see Kidman talking with her oh maybe 13 year old son in his room that night. She's giving him too much information about stuff (which is just more than her normal amount of oversharing). He asks if she's high, and she says, "maybe," to which he says it's weird. The next scene is her in her own room, laying face down in bed with her hand between her vulva area and the bed. Her butt is barely covered with a night shirt, and she may or may not be wearing underwear, but she is clearly stimulating the vulva area - not doing anything inside the vagina. Whether she is doing this through fabric or not doesn't matter too much. Both are realistic ways some women might stimulate their clit area. She starts moving more rapidly and frantically, making more grunty vocalizations and even grabbing the bedpost with her other hand. It looks as if she is really working hard towards an orgasm, and then she just stops in frustration. Overall, the movement and placement of her hand and her sounds seems as realistic as one could expect. Hey, even the situation of working hard to get there, but something just ain't gonna let it happen as easily as you'd want, so you just give up in frustration - hey I've been there on occasion, and that seemed realistic too.
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| So, here's the scene. I guess someone on the internet took a screenshot |
Anyway, I think the important SSL Review take home note is that this movie showed the physical act of masturbation in a realistic manner, and it also used the idea of a woman masturbating not in a way that made it weird in and of itself, but as a tool to enhance character and story. I give Margot at the Wedding 4 vulvas.
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