I’m officially calling Michelle Williams the best actress of my generation. Some people will agree with this statement, but many more will probably disagree. I think most people would say she is a very good actress but will be more hesitant to say excellent. To call her the best is a bold statement. But that’s what she is. To those who would quickly dismiss this statement, I encourage them to explore her complete filmography. She has some gems out there that are relatively unknown. Williams is very deserving of the three Academy Award nominations she has received (Best Actress in a Leading Role – Blue Valentine 2010, My Week with Marilyn 2011, Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Brokeback Mountain 2004). It is merely a matter of time before she wins her first of many Oscars.
Take This Waltz was written and directed by the ultra-talented Sarah Polley. Polley also wrote and directed 2006’s Away From Her, a movie that earned Julie Christie her fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance as an institutionalized woman with Alzheimer’s disease. I hope Polley helps Williams earn her fourth Academy Award nomination as well while also picking up one, if not two, for herself. Polley could earn one for her screenplay, but probably not for Best Director. Take This Waltz has two significant problems in terms of end-of-year awards. The first and more important is that it was released in January 2012. Look at the winners of most of the major awards for the last 25 years. Most are from movies released later in the year, with most having a November release or later. The second is that the film earned just $100,000 at the box office nationally. The Avengers made more than that at your local cinema in its first three days of release. The Avengers is an interesting comparison here. The Avengers was a terrifically entertaining movie. Heck, the storyline wasn’t even that bad. It is still early in terms of which movies I will ultimately end up seeing, but The Avengers was my number one movie until I saw Take This Waltz. Take This Waltz is no number one. I’ve only seen six at the time of this post. Take This Waltz will ultimately be in the top five, while The Avengers and The Grey will stay in the top ten. The other movies I’ve seen, including a good film in The Hunger Games, probably will not end up in the top ten.
In any case, being four paragraphs in, it’s time to start discussing the movie. First, if you are in a long-term relationship and it isn’t on a solid foundation, I might avoid seeing this film. I would probably not watch it with my significant either, regardless of our relationship’s strength. I think that part of the reason this movie has flown under the radar is that its topic might be considered taboo. The film’s plot, which I’ll discuss in a moment, is something everyone probably knows but won’t believe is true. And that is having strong feelings or completely falling in love with someone other than your partner (in this case, a married couple).
The person falling victim to this trap is Margo (Williams). She is happily married to Lou (Seth Rogen – Knocked Up, 50/50), but their marriage lacks passion. It is unknown if that passionate love was ever present or if it has simply worn off with five years of marriage. Like many of the ideas and themes in this movie, Polley leaves more to the imagination than you would expect. While her directing could have been better, she took what could have been a straightforward script and took us in directions that allowed us to form our own opinions. Before I go any further, before seeing this movie, you will think that a Michelle Williams/Seth Rogen on-screen marriage would not be believable, but it ultimately is. Rogen is funny, but not in a crass way. He is a highly likable character who cherishes his wife and constantly shows that he loves her, even if Margo wishes he would show it in different ways sometimes. She also loves him very much. They have a loving marriage. But even the most loving marriages are not immune to the everyday problems we will all experience. Because Lou is shown as a great guy in every second of this movie, he is dealt with regardless of the sometimes crappy situations. Because Margo loves him so much, we find ourselves more emotionally invested in Margo than we would a character in most movies. Margo is not perfect by any means. She has some psychological and emotional issues. It is explained early in the film that she is scared of situations in which there is transition. But more simply, she is afraid of being scared. She can be laughing, carefree, and happy one moment and empty the next. For example, one scene shows her dancing around her husband with a gleeful smile. She is trying to seduce him while he cooks chicken (more on that in a moment). When he gently turns down her advances, she ends up crying and almost forcing herself to say, “Do you know how hard it is to try and seduce you when you turn down my advances?” Lou hardly knows what to say. He’s not in her head and doesn’t know his wife’s inner thoughts entirely enough. So instead, he says what most married men would probably say. “I’m your husband, Margo. You don’t need to seduce me.”
Margo wants meaning in her life but doesn’t have the resources always to find it. She’s an aspiring writer, but we must assume she isn’t overly committed and could be better at it. Lou, meanwhile, is intent on writing a book about cooking chicken. He cooks chicken almost every night for dinner. He loves Margo but also loves cooking chicken. It’s hard to tell which one he loves more. He’s committed equally to each. He’s got his life in order, and Margo certainly doesn’t resent him for that or anything, but I think she wonders how it can be that easy for him and so difficult for her. She seems to want things that others have, but if she were to ask to name those things, she might not be able to.
Her life is complicated further by Daniel (Luke Kirby – Shattered Glass, The Greatest Game Ever Played), a rickshaw driver/aspiring artist who Margo meets on a writing assignment in Nova Scotia. The two meet by chance and are assigned seats next to each other on the plane ride back to Toronto. As they share a cab ride home, they live across the street from one another. They are physically attracted to one another. It’s harmless at first. He’s not married. She is. They flirt wildly. While doing so, however, Margo is under the assumption that once they say goodbye that they will never see each other again. When she realizes that their paths will undoubtedly cross again, she tells him I’m married, to which his response is, “That’s a shame.” Daniel isn’t a bad guy in this movie. We would all like to believe that as soon as Margo told him she was married, he would return and let her be. But as the old saying goes, it takes two to Tango. A relationship between Daniel and Margo can only go as far as each of them lets it. So if we are going to find fault in Daniel pursuing Margo after she tells him that she is married, then we have to find the same flaw in Margo leading him on.
The remainder of the movie revolves around what Margo will do about her new-found predicament. She’s happily married, but her marriage doesn’t have that spark she desires. She’s physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually attracted to this much more fit and, arguably, better-looking man. She imagines being swept away in his arms and taken to a place of unimaginable pleasures, yet she does not want to hurt her husband. As Margo and Daniel become closer, she and Lou start to drift away from one another. Margo is conscious of every decision she makes in the movie but cannot help herself. There isn’t another actress out there who could have pulled off what Williams pulled off. She is happy, laughing one moment and down in the dumps the next. She seems so sure one moment and so confused the next. She is in every scene in the movie. Every word, every movement, and every decision is believable. Because she convinces us that she is so uncertain of who she is and what she wants, we find ourselves rooting for her, chastising her, sympathizing with her, liking her, and hating her all at the same time.
As mentioned earlier, Polley does a great job of leading us in a particular direction but then leaving us with a path that diverges into multiple directions. She is “artsy” with her approach. At times, it is effective. At other times, it is a little much. I was dissatisfied with the ending too. She sort of gave us three different finishes, and there wasn’t one of them that felt right. Her approach throughout the movie was to progress the characters two or three days at a time with each scene. But in the end, we are given glimpses of the future at least months from the present. I felt that there was no real sense of conclusion. This was also what Polley was aiming towards. I didn’t feel cheated by her approach. I just felt a little dissatisfied and confused.
I advise anybody considering this movie to wait to watch the preview beforehand. A preview often shows too much of a film, essentially giving away the entire story at times. That is not the case with Take This Waltz. Instead, the two trailers I saw I thought would fool the viewers. I saw the trailer after the movie. Had I seen the trailer first, I would have had no interest in watching the movie. Likewise, if the trailer had interested me, I might have been disappointed in the film. If nothing else, you would have experienced something different than what you thought you would be experiencing based on seeing the trailer.
Plot 9.5/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 10/10 (I would never have imagined that the Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star” could be a fitting song for any movie that I enjoyed, but for this one, it was perfect)
Hook and Reel 9/10 (It hooked me enough to watch the film back to back)
Universal Relevance 9/10 (taboo topic in some regard, but relevant to us all nonetheless)
92.5%
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Blue Valentine
- Away From Her
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Little Children
- 500 Days of Summer