Noah Baumbach's somewhat disappointing follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, though maybe not so disappointing if proper heed had been taken of his slovenly visual style, the inexact camerawork, the mismatched shots, the gray, murky, dingy color. But still somewhat disappointing, in the central characterizations, for the sacrifice of focus and clarity in favor of shiftiness and multiplicity. Everyone in the dramatis personae is an uncohesive bundle of neuroses, and the smaller bundles are simply the characters with the smaller parts. The bigger ones are handled by Nicole Kidman as a well-known writer ("to a very few people") who, while undergoing her own marital breakup, drags herself and her girlish teenage son to her pregnant sister's second wedding; by Jennifer Jason Leigh (Baumbach's wife offscreen) as the hitherto estranged sister, a counterculture free spirit and reckless seeker; and by Jack Black as the groom-to-be, an unsuccessful and self-critical musician ("My scrotum is longer than my penis," "I have the emotional version of whatever bad feng shui would be," and so forth) who shaves off his nuptial mustache ("It's meant to be funny") when no one gets the joke. The overall level of sophistication remains high, even by New York-ish or New Yorker-ish standards; the hostile and rather sinister neighbors are good for a chuckle and a shudder; and the young folk (newcomer Zane Pais, Flora Cross, and the nice neglected girl from The Squid and the Whale, Halley Feiffer, Jules's daughter in real life) are so well drawn, in concord with those in his previous film, as to saddle Baumbach with an unshakable reputation. Nicole Kidman, of course, can do the tightly-wrapped thing without strain, and Jennifer Jason Leigh can do the loosey-goosey. Jack Black, who could certainly use the exercise, deserves credit for stretching if not for attaining. (2007) — Duncan Shepherd