Take This Waltz

source: Take This Waltz

I love Sarah Polley and looked very, very forward to seeing this film, but it was horrible. I expected better performances. The Margo character was annoying and at times seemed like she had some serious psychological issues. I'm guessing the male characters liked the idea of taking care of a victim. Frankly, I found it a little insulting. I think this movie could have been so much better Michelle Williams had not been cast as the lead. I like her acting, but her character annoyed me so much that I wanted to stop the movie; however, I kept watching hoping it would get better.I think Seth Rogen is the only winner in this film. He gave a solid performance and was the only likable character in the film. I am very disappointed.

There is a scene in this film where one of the lead characters is sitting on the porch of the family home. You notice that a pillar separates their house from the one next door and that it has been painted one side white (their side) and the other maroon (the neighbours' side). You think:'Why didn't they get together and agree on one colour. Would have looked much better.' These are the kinds of thoughts that pass through one's mind when enduring this intensely dull and poorly-crafted movie. Margot has been married to Lou for five years and is bored. She is propositioned by artist Daniel. After an interminable wait they get together for some arty multi-person bonking. Fin. Even this thin and at times implausible plot could have been made into a watchable drama, but a clunky script and leaden acting prevents anything catching fire. Margot is about to leave after a first visit to Daniel's apartment (he lives conveniently just across the street)- She: 'I'll see you again.' He: 'It's inevitable.' Not even Burton and Taylor could have made much of those kinds of lines, and Brief Encounter it ain't. Margot and her lover, Daniel, come over as the sort of people you wouldn't want living next door. The only likable character is Margot's husband, Lou, who is portrayed as a bit of a bozo, cheerfully cooking his chicken dishes as his marriage disintegrates. But at least he is sociable, generous and productive whereas Margot barely works, complains about his cooking without cooking anything herself, and generally acts like an adolescent with a minor mental illness. Even during her developing affair she cuddles up to hubby in coldly cynical fashion. Lou doesn't stand a chance. Meanwhile, Margot's lover is a most charmless individual who thinks that whispering sweet nothings equates with uttering the most graphic dirty talk. He shows little genuine emotion for Margot, let alone 'love', instead displaying an arrogant, self-centered, almost sociopathic demeanour. He doesn't even cook! Add in something of an obsession with urinating on screen - in the pool, at her house, at his house - a soundtrack that culminates with a dirge from Leonard Cohen, and. . . well, we came close to walking out. Take this waltz? No thanks! (Viewed at Screen 3, The Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK, 27 August 2012)

Sarah Polley wrote, directed and produced this little Canadian Indie TAKE THIS WALTZ and it seems t be a very personal project. Polley definitely has some insights into contemporary relationships, family, commitment, and values and she manages to transmit those ideas with success in this rather strange but in the end satisfying film. The cast is small and tight an dwell interrelated (except for a rather inappropriate shower scene at the ladies swimming pool when the shower is filled with naked unattractive older obese women) and the three primary actors who form this fragile love triangle are exceptional as are the other two main characters whose purpose seems to be an examination of alcoholism and its effects on a family. We meet Margot (Michelle Williams) nervously coping with her fear of airports at the end of a writing assignment for a travel company. Her eyes engage a handsome young artist Daniel (Luke Kirby) and as fate would have it they are assigned adjoining seats on the airplane home. After an uncomfortably awkward conversation we can see that there is a mutual attraction, and on arriving home they share a taxi and discover that they live across the street form each other. Sensing her attraction and being the faithful wife that she is, Margot informs Daniel that she is married and they part ways. Margot's husband Lou (Seth Rogen) is a stay at home guy who loves cooking and is writing a book on various chicken recipes. Though Margot and Lou repeatedly tell each other how much they love each other, their marriage of five years seems more of a silly childish game than a mature marriage relationship. There is a moment when their tiresome silly word games is interrupted by a possible physical liaison but the idea of sharing love and the concept of a child is touched upon and we never find out why that is or who is trying to have or not have a family. It becomes more obvious that Margot wants to be more exposed to Daniels and they play-act in strange situations, never consummating what obviously is a mutual attraction: Margot is fanatically faithful to Lou whom she repeated says she loves. The closest they come to intimacy is Daniel's responding to Margot's question 'What do you want to do to me?' - and the monologue seems to reveal hidden needs in Margot. Daniel's sister Geraldine (Sarah Silverman) is a recovering alcoholic and her child with her husband James (Graham Abbey) is beloved by Margot. The two confide in each other and words such as ¨Life has a gap in it, it just does. You don't go crazy trying to fill it¨ rather summarize the tow character's inquires. Eventually Margot decides she must explore the newly awakened feelings she has for Daniel and the remainder of the film is how that resolves: the ending is pretty much left up to the viewer. Michelle Williams continues to grow as an actress, able to say more with her eyes and her body language than she is with the script of lines. She is truly remarkable. But she is very well supported by both Luke Kirby and Seth Rogen in roles that are not easy to make credible. The cinematography by Luc Montpellier adds a sense of surreal romance to the film and the musical score by Jonathan Goldsmith incorporates pop tunes such as 'Video killed the radio star' have superb secondary meanings. Parts of the film are flimsy and irritating and unresolved, but Sarah Polley proves that she is rich with ideas that makes us look at ourselves and those we love in a different light. Grady Harp

Thinking that it contained a simple three-way love dilemma due to the brief explanation on its DVD, I chose this movie, totally unaware of the untold realities. However, in the end, I was full of frustration and utter disgust. It basically focuses on a childish woman depending on her sexual desires more than anything, who is clearly dissatisfied with her marriage, despite the fact that her husband clearly loves her. The concept may seem likable, but the movie certainly isn't so. So, the torture starts right away: this woman meets a man at a medieval-era stage, she is asked to whip an actor for the public humiliation reenactment, we understand that she is there because she is a journalist, yet an unhappy one, but why is the guy there? Well, probably because of his perversity! Later on, we see both of them ending up in the same flight sitting next to each other (oh yeah, sorry, with an unoccupied seat between them), right after we see the woman in a wheelchair, because she is afraid of "being in between things"! The two also, interestingly, find out that they are actually living right across each other. The woman and her husband talk to each other in an infantile manner, they live in some kind of a weird Indie/hippie neighborhood, they are underemployed, yet don't seem like experiencing financial problems. On the other hand, the weird neighbor, who likes to listen to the woman, unlike her husband, makes a living by driving a rickshaw, but actually is an artist who is afraid of sharing his drawings! Both male characters are depicted in a very shallow way, thanks to Sarah Polley, especially Lou is just unbearable. Sarah Silverman is included in the cast only to be seen naked and seriously has one important line to say. The final sex scene is far from being humane, yet more like a cheap * movie, where Leonard Cohen is preferred only for his nationality. The message is very basic, yet the movie wastes 2 hours of your valuable time to express it: Margot doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, changing the love interest is far from being the solution! Briefly, this movie is far from being realistic and successful. Unnecessarily frequent use of nudity, the very lack of a scenario, shallow and unrelatable characters and an average acting creates an artistic meltdown!

¨Life has a gap in it, it just does. You don't go crazy trying to fill it.¨ Thanks to Take this Waltz, I've found my worse film of 2012 so far. This is a movie that looked extremely good in the trailers, but didn't work at all for me as a film. The movie had some beautiful shots, the scenery was incredible, there were some strong performances as well, but the story just didn't work for me and it never felt believable for one moment. Just because this film manages to break all the romantic genre conventions doesn't mean that it's going to be good. I never felt the chemistry between any of the characters, and everything just seemed forced. This is Sarah Polley's second feature film after her successful 2006 movie, Away From Her, which won several awards and also received two Oscar nominations (one for Polley as a screenwriter and another for Julie Christie's leading performance). Polley also wrote the depressive screenplay for Take this Waltz where a married woman struggles to remain faithful to her husband after meeting a very attractive young man who just happens to live in the road across from them. Michelle William's character really had several issues and I just found her behavior extremely rare. Her relationship with her husband was more of a playful friendship than anything else. I don't know what her neighbor found interesting in her as she behaved awkwardly all the time. I found this movie hard to follow as I couldn't connect, sympathize, or relate with any of the characters. The entire movie just dragged for an entire two hours and if it wasn't for some beautiful photography I would've hated this movie even more. Margot (Michelle Williams) is a writer who is on a trip working on her assignment when she meets an artist named Daniel (Luke Kirby). Both of them happen to share seats in the airplane flight back home to Toronto and sparks seem to fly between them. Coincidentally when they arrive and share a taxi together they realize that they live across the street from each other. Margot tells Luke that she's married and they say their goodbyes. Margot enters her home and we are introduced to her husband, Lou (Seth Rogen), who is a loving and friendly husband. He is a cook and is working on a cookbook with different chicken recipes. Lou and Margot's relationship is strange however, Margot is distance at times and acts like a teenager. Both of them are very playful, but she seems to have some sort of psychological disorder. Margot begins feeling like something is missing in her life and begins spending more time with Daniel as she feels physically attracted to him. She begins to feel conflicted and guilty because she realizes this and doesn't want to cheat on her husband. This pretty much summarizes a plot where almost nothing else happens outside of Margot's world and the tension she faces between choosing to stay with Lou or giving in to her feelings towards Daniel. I was really looking forward to this film because the trailer seemed really interesting and the critics have been praising this film, but I was really disappointed with the way things turned out. I did not like the story at all, and felt Michelle Williams's character was annoying. It was painful to watch her at times. I did not feel the chemistry between her and Luke Kirby at all, everything felt forced. I must say Seth Rogen is probably the best in this film and it was interesting to see him in a dramatic role. Sarah Silverman also has a supportive role in this film, and her character is way more interesting than Michelle's. Too bad Polley didn't decide to make the story revolve around her instead. The only positive thing I can say about Take this Waltz is that it has some beautiful shots, the photography was great, and the soundtrack was actually really good, but the rest of the movie failed tremendously. This is the worst film I've seen this year and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. http://estebueno10.blogspot.com

I ♥ Rogen, ♥ Williams, but not feeling this pretentious movie. Unfortunately Williams and Rogen can't even save this film. They make an adorable on screen couple but seem highly out of place here. You can feel the overbearing voice of Polley in the story, who I enjoy occasionally as an actor but clearly not as a producer. There is a lot of pompous dialogue ("Do you know how much courage it takes to seduce you" to Rogen who plays this easy going guy you just gotta love) Maybe in an attempt of adding poetry and depth? All these moments just hangs there out of place like a shriveled balloon in the office corner. On the other hand it's full of clichés. You feel that this film is aiming for the film festival audience by pulling off a few run of the mill art-house tricks, making the movie feel dishonest and artificial. If I could rate this on two different scales, I'd rate the cast 8 and the script and production 3.

This film shouldn't work nearly as well as it does. Take This Waltz centres around a two-suitors plot that was tired a century ago, takes place in a hipster-utopia version of Toronto, has multiple comedic actors who've worn out their welcome doing Serious Roles, and its characters are either selfish or dull. But Take This Waltz also has a kind of magic that can wash over the most jaded cinema viewer and make you forget that you've seen it all before. Maybe it's Sarah Polley's direction, or maybe it's the brilliant performance of Michelle Williams that makes her character likable against all odds. Maybe the thematic statement about the perils of looking for adventure and the need for constant romance is something that we need affirmed more often against the tide of romcoms and gooey melodramas. Maybe it's just that I really want to live in hipster- utopia-Toronto. But this film stuck with me for days afterwards, its scenes playing over and over in my mind, blotting out all the rest of the disposable entertainment. There are so many indelible images here: a public shower scene which plays pranks on the male gaze, that goofy but somehow powerful 360-degree-rotation montage, and of course the final scene, a coda that grants its central character and us along with her a moment of unmediated joy. And it's that joy that the film understands as being something we maybe have to pursue no matter what its cost. Michelle Williams' abashed smile gives us a taste of that adventure, and like the rest of the movie, it's damn hard to resist.

Spoiler alert! This review will reveal the end of "Take This Waltz." "Take This Waltz" tells the story of Margot, a chronically depressed woman who is in a nice, stable marriage to Lou, a nice, stable guy. Margot meets, by chance, Daniel, a man who is slimmer, poorer, more artistic, and more conventionally handsome than her nice, stable husband. Don promises Margot hot experiences in bed. Margot leaves Lou for Dan. In a montage sequence, Margot is shown having hot encounters with Dan, including three ways. Then Margot is shown being, again, chronically depressed. Margot implies that she regrets leaving Lou. And that's it. That's the whole movie. It's not funny; it's not smart; it's not wonderful to look at. The direction, sets, costumes, dialogue, are all very not-special. The one powerful thing in the film is Michelle Williams' performance as Margot. Williams is a one woman storm front. Williams flutters and pouts and tears up and mopes with great gusto. Her performance totally overpowers anything else in the film, and it just starts feeling odd that someone is acting so hard in response to such a flimsy script in a film that isn't going anywhere. Lou and Margot aren't believable as a stable, settled couple. Michelle Williams is too young and too attractive. You think – he married her for her looks; she married him because she was looking for a rock. Their marriage is awkward. They aren't shown supporting or enjoying each other. They are shown not connecting and letting each other down. You don't get the sense that Margot is sacrificing one good thing – intimacy and security – for another good thing – dangerous but thrilling encounters with the unknown. You get the sense that someone without much life experience or depth wrote this script very quickly and without input or rewrites. The film throws in attempts to be artistic. Margot meets Dan at an open air museum where historical re-enactors whip a man accused of adultery. Margot is lectured by naked older women in a public shower: even new things get old. Lou is a cookbook author who writes only about chicken. The joke is, of course, that even exotic meats like snake are said to "taste like chicken." Exotic Dan will eventually bore Margot just as domestic Lou did. These attempts to be artistic just make the film desperate and pretentious, not deep. The problem with the film is the problem with Margot. She is depressed; that is the central fact of her life. A dramatically arresting film about Margot would address her depression. She'd do what depressed people do – go to a shrink, try various medications, contemplate suicide, talk it out with friends. The film tries to be about the entropy of nice, stable relationships versus the appeal of the hot Bohemian stranger who promises an erotic candy shop of delights. That very interesting dilemma is not honored by the film. You don't look at Margot and think, "Appreciate what you have," or even, "Go for it!" You look at Margot and think "Prozac. Please. Or talk therapy or something. Or else this film is going to kill me with boredom."

Greetings again from the darkness. We have watched Sarah Polley grow up on screen. She began as a 6 year old child actress and evolved into an indie film favorite. Now, she is finding her true voice as a film director ... and what a unique voice it is. In Away from Her (2009), she told the heartbreaking story of a husband's struggle with losing his beloved wife to Alzheimer's Disease. Now we get the story of Margot, who just can't seem to find happiness or fulfillment within the stability of marriage. Margot is played exceedingly well by Michelle Williams. I would say that without the casting of Ms. Williams, this film would probably not have worked. There is something about her that prevents us from turning on her character when she veers from her loyal, if a bit lacking in passion, husband Lou (played by Seth Rogen). Williams and Rogen have the little things that a marriage needs ... a language until itself and the comfort of consistency. What Margot misses is the magic. She thinks she finds that in her neighbor Daniel, a rickshaw driver played by Luke Kirby. Daniel is the kind of guy that every guy inherently knows not to trust, yet women somehow fall for. He is a subtle and slow seducer. The kind that make it seem like everything is innocent ... right up until it isn't. Margot has that most annoying of spousal traits: she expects everyday to be Disneyland. The best scene in the movie occurs when Lou's sister (a terrific Sarah Silverman) confronts Margot and tells her that life has a gap and that you will go crazy trying to fill it. It's a wonderfully insightful line from writer/director Polley. Of course, we understand that this is Margot's nature and she learns that sometimes broken things can't be fixed. Another great scene occurs in the women's locker room after water aerobics. There is a juxtaposition between generations of older women and younger ones. We see the differences not only in physical bodies, but in the wisdom that comes with age. More brilliance from the script. The one scene that I thought crossed the line was the "martini" scene. I found it tasteless, vulgar and far more extreme than what was called for at the time. But that's a small complaint for an otherwise stellar script. As terrific as Ms. Williams and Ms. Silverman are, I found Seth Rogen to be miscast and quite unbelievable as a focused cookbook writing guy who has pretty simple, yet quietly deep thoughts about how a marriage should work. Again, this didn't ruin the film for me, but I did find him distracting and quite an odd choice. It's filmmakers like Sarah Polley that keep the movie business evolving. Her viewpoint and thoughts are unique and inspirational, and should lead to a long career as a meaningful writer/director. Oh, and the use of Leonard Cohen's "Take this Waltz" song fit right in over the credits.