‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ movie review: Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Sparkle in Apple’s Offbeat Family Drama

When viewed from a distance—like, for example, the interstellar perspective of a UFO landing in Fullerton, California, in one of the protagonist’s fictional sci-fi videos— Margo has financial problems It may initially seem like an adventure in a strange, strange land.

The group is full of colorful job descriptions: a former Hooters waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer’s Shyanne), a former professional wrestler (Nick Offerman’s Jinx), and a trio of OnlyFans models. The opening narration, presented by Margot herself (Elle Fanning), tells of “impossible possibilities” and “trying to avoid reality by rewriting it.” Overall, David E. Kelley’s series seems to have all the hallmarks of a powerfully twisted family drama, the kind where everyone seems adorably strange but also not quite real.

Look closely, however, and Margo has financial problems He reveals himself to be something else. Its characters are certainly memorable, and their family relationships are a bit unconventional. But this is a story grounded in the real world, and all the more interesting for it.

While Margot is a fabulist, the circumstances that initiate the plot are all very everyday. During her first year at the local community college, Margot attracts the attention of English professor Mark (Michael Angarano), who is an admirer of her writing and an even greater admirer of her long, shapely legs. They soon fall into bed together. A few months into their relationship, Margo realized she was pregnant. Not long after that, Mark stopped answering her calls.

Unable to attend school or hold down a job while raising Bodhi alone—resulting in bitter heartbreak for her mother (Pfeiffer), who had given birth to Margo when she was young, poor, and single, and had hoped her daughter would enjoy a brighter future—Margo finds herself in an impossible situation. But salvation comes in two unexpected ways.

One is the sudden appearance on her doorstep of Jinx, her semi-estranged father, fresh out of rehab and needing a place to stay. The other is Margo’s decision to start an OnlyFans account. With Jinx and their other roommate, a shy young cosplayer named Susie (Thadda Graham), helping to watch Buddy, Margo is finally able to start making money from home.

Initially, Margot’s action is text-based – for advice, she will tell you what Pokemon looks like your penis. Gradually, she expands into raunchy photos and then videos, all the while insisting that they are less pornographic than art. For her part, Margo has financial problems He resists characters who find this disreputable or insulting, and delights in Margot’s contentment as increasingly elaborate sci-fi plots are hatched to film her with the help of Susie, and fellow models KC (musician Rico Nasty) and Rose (Anora‘s Lindsey Normington) and even (for the SFW parts) Jinx. But the series’ tendency to highlight the kinky trappings of Margot’s work while downplaying its sex appeal suggests that Margot may not be the only one dealing with a bit of what Rose calls “internalized pornophobia.”

Still, it’s a minor jarring note in an overall well-thought-out and endearing drama. Margo has financial problemsbased on the novel by Ruffie Thorpe, appreciates what is abnormal in these characters without treating them as anomalies, and sympathizes with them without ever pitying them. Fanning is usually charming as Margot, maintaining her heroine’s spark of joy even when life throws at her one dirty diaper, one unpaid bill, and one legal case after another.

But it’s her parents who really shine. Dressed in tight cheetah clothing and faux fur, Sheyan is hardly a retired figure. But Pfeiffer brings nuance to the character’s big emotions, conveying a lifetime of emotions just by the way she watches Margo during her baby shower. As for Offerman, though, he can be just as entertaining as Jinks – the enthusiasm with which he explains wrestling moves or story plots. I am Claudius As for the incomprehensible Bodhi, he’s quite adorable – he really excels at drawing out the character’s sadness, which runs so deep it seems to have lodged itself in the crevices of his face.

Along with Kenny (Greg Kinnear), Cheyenne’s dopey fiancé, and Susie, who is unfortunately underdeveloped despite Graham’s likable presence, Cheyanne, Jinx, and Margo form a family unit around Bodhi that feels stronger because of the complexity of their unlikely bonds.

It’s a pleasure to simply sit with the crew as Margo and Cheyenne bond, fight, and reconcile, in a style familiar to mothers and daughters around the world, or as former lovers Jinx and Cheyenne wistfully reminisce about their romantic history on the eve of her wedding. Nevertheless Margo has a financial problem It’s the rare show that feels just the right length for the amount of story it has to tell, and at eight 40-minute episodes, I’m still a little sorry to see it end at the end of the season.

Inevitably, the fact that this unconventional clan can be so chaotic despite their best intentions – a broken jaw, a broken hand and a restraining order all feature in the plot – requires defending them, with the help of a lawyer played by Nicole Kidman. (In a fun change of pace from the sad white lady roles, Linda is a middle-class white lady.) Once Mark and his mother (Marcia Gay Harden, so icy aristocrat she could be Ryan Murphy’s character), who had previously tried to cover up Bodhi’s very existence with a non-disclosure agreement, are back in the picture, they try to paint Margo’s circle as unreliable, deviant, and downright weird.

On that last point, they might be right — not every family would be associated with choreographing and building costumes for a serialized OnlyFans series. but, Margo has financial problems Counters with a defiant smile, so what? Their corner of Fullerton is perhaps a little strange, populated by people who make a living by being larger than life. It still feels, at the end of it all, like home.