Nicole Kidman is the knotted ball of self-pity and resentment that is Margot, while Mrs director Noel Baumbach (Leigh) plays Margot’s slightly less uptight sister Pauline and Jack Black is Pauline’s fiancé Malcolm.

With her pubescent son Claude (Zane Pais) in tow, Margot returns to the family home in Vermont where the slacky couple intend to marry beneath the old tree in the garden.

Unfortunately, the weird hillbilly neighbours (we’re obviously on the Vermont-Louisiana border) like nothing more than sunbathing in the nude, gutting swine for the family hog-roast and demanding that their neighbours cut the tree down.

As is her wont, Margot makes the situation worse. And when Pauline confides that she is pregnant, Margot just has to blab. She also does nothing to improve her relationships with Claude, her decent but soon-to-be-ex-husband Jim (Turturro), or even her equally devious lover and writing partner Dick (Ciaran Hinds).

Competitive, critical and hypocritical, she blames everyone but herself for her own failings while lambasting Pauline for projecting her inadequacies and insecurities onto other people.

This is highlighted in the film’s best scene when dirty Dick puts her on the spot at a public discussion of her latest work. Kidman brilliantly conveys Margot’s distress but while her family is sympathetic, the situation elicits a certain schadenfreude.