Kenneth Lonergan's MARGARET, starring Anna Paquin as a teenager in turmoil

Just didn't love it.

duuude

i wouldve watched 4 hours of this

yeah me too, easily.

word. i was going to SPOILER reference a scene i wanted to mention, but i don't have to, because you can just choose any scene from the last third of the film and it still applies: it was so rich & multifaceted, everything was just laden with the dimensions & weight of everyone and everything involved.

SPOILER-ESQUE: so say the phone conference in the lawyer's office, there were these unfurling threads of money & blame & responsibility & guilt & mis-connecting & law & anguish & self-awareness. i kinda feel like the distributors for this should be tried for unamerican activities, it just felt crucial, useful.

quietly entered the canon of best-films-about-being-a-teenager, also.

This is, IMO, the best American movie since Mulholland Drive, and the best film I've ever seen on an initial screening run. As Ryan says upthread, empathy and solipsism are its primary concerns, but it finds a far more intangible paradigm amongst the drama: society as a mental construct, built and fractured within each character's mind, where everybody has their reasons and their righteousness but where conflict bears the subtle grace of inevitability.

I mean, quite apart from its invoking of my favourite poet and its dynamite script (I laughed, I cried etc), it is a film where people's relevant and entirely believable problems interact with one another in a sympathetic, unresolving manner - the other film of recent years to do this (that I've seen) was The White Ribbon (which was, perhaps, less positive about its characters, but which bore the stench of warfare and deprivation to a far higher degree than the metropolitan excoriation of Margaret). The two movies are, I would say, the two best I've seen in the past decade. These are films that operate at the highest pitch of mystery and confluence - a movie must have confluence (or, more crudely, alchemy) for it to work, otherwise it is just screened logic (which sadly constitutes the vast majority of Hollywood and UK film atm). Did not La Regle Du Jeu operate in the same poetically all-embracing, affably intermeshed way as these films? Did not Bunuel's later movies demonstrate the worshipful truth of coincidence and confluence?

Margaret and The White Ribbon are movies of great heart. Each character is given weight, and each character is given their reasons. Of course, Margaret concentrates most rewardingly upon the central figure. Anna Paquin shows integrity, even when she lies. She discovers personal integrity even as everyone and everything around her becomes an extension of herself. And she leads the viewer into a story whose unbalanced complexity resembles their own life, and where resolution is less unrequired, more complete anathema. Such are the greatest of films - where the tale careens onward, beyond the cinema. (Certified Copy is another great ILE recommendation of recent times - my wife & I even had a Certified Copy roleplay evening afterwards, demonstrating the power that an unresolved analysis of pretence and present-moment reality can have. Not as good or exciting as Margaret, though - it's very much limited around a traditional marital paradigm rather than a societal one.)

As a subordinate point, I hope I've conveyed which kind of cinema appeals to me the most, and that some amongst you could suggest further viewing along (or parallel/perpendicular to) such lines. My gratitude besets you.

wtf paquin is like 30

she filmed this just after the piano though

she's so good in this anyway

like your post btw once-a-week, going to chew on it & come back to you when i've some time. this film reminded me of one i've forgotten since coming out of the theatre, but one of the reference points kicked around upthread is farhadi's a separation, which came out last year (or only just, in the states, i think) & topped a lot of lists for being v rounded & sympathetic. think you would dig if you don't already, & that there are probably other iranian routes you'd be into along similar lines

oh ok somehow missed the mention in the OP of it being filmed so long ago

some backstory here if it's of interest:
http://entertainment.time.com/2011/12/02/director-kenneth-lonergan-emerges-to-tell-us-hes-on-team-margaret/

has a play on bway in may, also

white ribbon is such joyless and moralizing film i never wouldve thought of it in comparison to 'maragaret'. the best thing about the latter is how much it shares a teenagers sense of curiosity and freshness towards the world, its interested in how things work w/o really feeling like its trying to explain to you how things work whereas 'the white ribbon' is cynical and didactic imo

anyway once a week you might really like céline sciamma's 'tomboy', from this year, i think its a movie w/ a great sense of empathy and it uses character study to examine big, important qn abt gender/society &c &c

I loved your review but recoiled when you mentioned The White Ribbon.

Is this on DVD yet?

i wasn't crazy about the white ribbon either - i think i liked it well enough, maybe i just thought it was sorta autopilot haneke with a slightly jarring context change - but i could imagine tying in code unknown or cache with margaret, i guess. i'm sorta blanking on films to recommend, particularly re your emphasis on 'confluence', which is very otm, because i feel like there are a lot of well-woven films from the past decade (i just can't think which), the ones that aren't as brash or literal as like babel or w/e

(I laughed, I cried etc)

this bears repeating wrt this film; it was frequently very funny, sharp and rhythmic, & there were parts - kind of strangely separate from or at least dissynchronous with whatever its emotional peaks were - where i was feeling teary (her running across the square downtown after leaving the meeting was one); another example of its range. i also thought it did a much better, bolder job using new york atmospherically than most anything recent i can remember, &, to get a cheap dig in, infinitely better than shame did; its music-&-drifting-camera passages were very effective & exemplary of the kind of purposeful, contributory content that enriched the film as it increased its running time.

still processing slightly, & i guess 'empathy' does encompass a lot of what the film was concerned w/, but i think there's something else, definitely something societal. i think what was so affecting for me about the scene when they're arguing over the phonecall was that it was testament to everyone processing & living with an event that's happened, doing whatever they can to reconstruct, but in very narrative terms, & with that autonomy there being the inevitable butting of heads. like i think it was very concentrated on balance in a lot of ways - obv in those high-school classroom discussions, but also in AP striving for a counterweight to her initial actions.

xp nuh-uh :/, idk whether it's on IFC on demand or something though? dvd date not even announced afaik, i think the guy wants to screen his 3 hr cut somehow

maybe i should say imbalance. like the hilarious argument w/her mom about jean reno (also mainly hilarious)

i dont really know what the white ribbon is - haneke right? - but a lot of once a week's post seems apt to me. margaret seems like too 'big' a movie for me to be able to say something big picture about it, but i can talk about some things i liked

i dont think 'margaret' SHARES a teenagers sense of curiosity/freshness wrt the world - if it did i'd find it unbearable - but i do think it's sensitive to how teenagers feel and experience things, without also valorizing that experience. the clarity with which the movie sees margaret herself is remarkable to me, she bursts at the seams with selfishness and unearned moral certitude, but the film doesnt condemn her - it doesnt need to, because she's barreling headfirst into the adult world, where the consequence-free upper west side private school echo chamber that has cultivated her bullying persona is repeatedly shown to create friction, and then consequences, with the adults who Don't Have To Put Up With Her Shit. no remonstration of margaret on the movie's part is ever required

the reason i could watch basically an infinitely longer version of this, no matter how useless the tangents in it get, is that everything about the movie's world is so sharply observed. the moment we meet the jeannie berlin character in tight close-up, remembering her friend, i knew exactly who this woman was, she's so aptly presented that i had no doubt that lonergan would be capable of 'observing' her in any situation without ever striking a false note

the scene where margaret horrifyingly posits that she was actually inhabited by the ghost of allison janey's daughter or some shit is unbelievable in how observant it is, how it nails that narcissistic grasping-for-maturity moment that this character would clearly find herself settling into, and how berlin (who you could see as a margaret who's actually been around the block a few times) reacts with rage at the way this child is trying to make herself the center of her dead friend's life

i also thought it did a much better, bolder job using new york atmospherically than most anything recent i can remember, &, to get a cheap dig in, infinitely better than shame did; its music-&-drifting-camera passages were very effective & exemplary of the kind of purposeful, contributory content that enriched the film as it increased its running time.

i think this may partly be that the movie deeply understands new york culturally, or at least its particular slice of new york, so its images of the city are naturally more resonant, just as a part of the movie's world. shame displays no particular understanding of new york as anything other than a place that can be photographed prettily

wow yes, definitely. which takes me back slightly to a couple of the points in yr reading of the film; i think you're much harsher on margaret than me (it is possible the weight of my teenage crush on anna paquin makes me over-sympathetic) - so say with the scene in which she's talking about inhabiting the body of the daughter or w/e, &c&c, while it is totally horrifying, & utterly without perspective or sensitivity, to me the real thing about that scene is just the inability to articulate, because there's clearly a thing she's trying to express - that theoretically it could be nice in someone's last moments to have even the confused delusion of feeling as if one were with one's daughter, to have that illusion, & that that's a legitimate thing to wonder, but it exists as an idea basically for the audience and only in between the characters. & when you mention the consequence-free upper west side private school echo chamber that has cultivated her bullying persona - this was another great strand, i thought (which to go on about the phonecall some more seemed to get some sense of pay-off in someone saying maybe $350000 isn't a lot of money to ~you~) that sorta existed from multiple angles.

prior to the film i hadn't really known, beyond a mention in a blurb, in what sense this was a 9/11 film, but it was a powerful element, like i think particularly in scenes like the lunch with the lawyer in which they're weighing the importance of suffering & having to contemplate it & revisit it, weirder still in this strange, removed context it now exists in (in this case, money). or what the other lawyer says, this is how we punish people now.

so good.

like this film for me had a lot of "what then means, now", the lens through which people have to look back on things, even recent things, changes in friendships, stages of relationships with family, & how to deal with that day-to-day. lisa flags under the weight of that, and then the additional weight of global context, people dying &c&c

(it is possible the weight of my teenage crush on anna paquin makes me over-sympathetic)

heh, well its possible my distaste for paquin on true blood makes me overly harsh (i cant front on this performance though)

i havent thought much about the 9/11 stuff. it kinda doesnt interest me, but it's certainly there. the role of jewish identity seems really important in this movie, but im not sure if its a thematic thing or just because it's part of accurately portraying the milieu

i was sure i posted about this film on ilx but it must have been the sandbox. i absolutely loved it, could easily see how it could/should have been longer, would def watch a director's cut. so well observed, lonergan has a real ear for the nuances and details on which conversations turn - all the human interaction felt so recognisable and true to life.

i thought the tonal shifts worked in the film's favour - they also felt true to life, specifically the double-backing criss-crossing random illogic of adolescent life (lisa's life) that nonetheless feels absolutely straight & true at the time. it handled her fundamental dislikeability really well - never condemnatory enough for you to want to turn her off - though the REAL TALK scene that you've been discussing was definitely much needed.

how berlin (who you could see as a margaret who's actually been around the block a few times)

totally!

i really want to read a good in-depth essay on this - nothing i've read so far has quite gotten as into it as i want.

Paquin's name isn't Margaret. The name's only said in English class.

think i simultaneously referred to her as both lisa & m above, oops

consumer warning: There are no characters named Margaret in the film.

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 12 October 2011 19:10 (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Paquin's name isn't Margaret. The name's only said in English class.

― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Monday, January 9, 2012 7:38 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol yeah, how could i forget that. i even call her lisa upthread. stupid poem

lol

Lincoln Center has a screening w/ Lonergan & cast members in 3 weeks:

http://www.filmlinc.com/press/entry/fslc-announces-12th-edition-of-film-comment-selects-february-17-march-1

p jeal, i'm unusually psyched for a rewatch anyway, i'm sure that'll be great. i'd be interested to know what paquin thinks about it, & whether there are any updates on other cuts coming out, etc; i read something recently that further obscured the issue, talking about a scorsese cut that lonergan preferred, of similar length (ie not the full 3hr cut), which wasn't the one released.

belongs in the film snob thread but: the rest of the film comment selects season sounds good, also; the whole of gorin's southern california trilogy in a day, the new kore-eda, &c. tix on sale thurs am.

playing in LA this week

want to see this tonight but don't want to get out of the theater at 1:15am : /

This was a quick two and a half hours, and yeah maybe some scenes seem superfluous (Matt Damon?) I wouldn't really do away with any of them, they're all so precisely drawn and evocative and resonant.

All the scenes between Lisa and her mother just wrecked me, all that particular failing-to-communicate that goes on between parents and their teens.

Coming out of the theatre, I overheard one couple talk about their attention being "in and out" while watching it, which is unfathomable to me. I was riveted by every second of this and wish it was longer. Hope to see the Lonergan's cut at some point.

Yeah, this was brilliant and i thought it flew by. My one complaint (and it's just a stupid pet peeve) is that i could have done without a crying at the opera scene. Bit of a cliche, no?

this is hilarious btw

my wife & I even had a Certified Copy roleplay evening afterwards, demonstrating the power that an unresolved analysis of pretence and present-moment reality can have.

absolutely a cliche but I felt like they'd earned it somehow. It felt appropriately grandiose and melodramatic

absolutely a cliche but I felt like they'd earned it somehow. It felt appropriately grandiose and melodramatic

― all the other twinks with their fucked up dicks (billy), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 17:29 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah otm. i think i flagged up the speakerphone call in the lawyer's office, somewhere upthread, as something that was incredibly rich in the earned dynamics it was displaying, regarding each character's motivation & history & failings &c&c&c, & i just loved the crying scene at the end for the same reasons - it isn't even which one of these things does it mean but the unruly mess of motivations for the mother starting to cry soon killed me - a kind of joining in with her daughter, a redress to their distance, a kind of remnant of grief, something that snowballed, something that took over.

While I find Matt Damon more enticing as a geometry teacher than as an action hero, I think going where they did was a mistake, one plot strand too many.

I think Lonergan was working on the basis that there is no such thing as a plot strand too many. I reckon this film could easily have had an hour cut from it. Lots of the film was very good, but there was too much of it, burying the film's essence in a load of superfluous detail.

Bah, I side with the Fox suits - I am a philistine.

then you are on the right board

Lincoln Center has a screening w/ Lonergan & cast members in 3 weeks:

http://www.filmlinc.com/press/entry/fslc-announces-12th-edition-of-film-comment-selects-february-17-march-1

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:36 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

did any new yorkers see this? would be curious to hear what kinds of things lonergan said

here's yer video, H4A

http://www.filmlinc.com/blog/entry/video-a-conversation-with-the-cast-and-crew-of-margaret

awesome! thank you

Eugene Hernandez on Twitter wrote:
Tidbit from Searchlight bash (pretty sure I can share it): MARGARET DVD in May will include a directors cut; not finished for theatrical.

'pparently

oOoOoOh

I reckon this film could easily have had an hour cut from it. Lots of the film was very good, but there was too much of it, burying the film's essence in a load of superfluous detail.

Bah, I side with the Fox suits - I am a philistine.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, February 22, 2012 1:33 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was my (controversial minority) opinion. Also, the dream sequence was totally WTF???

Also, am I the only one who thought of My So-Called Life in connection with this? (Post-9/11, minus network standards & practices censorship, and turned up to 11, but....)

i have no memory of a dream sequence, which part was that?

Lisa turns on the tap, only to find blood gushing from it. Then the dead woman appears in the mirror behind her. (Possibly some edits of the films don't include this bit?)

Now, I agree throughout the movie Lisa is suffering from guilt and PTSD. But putting this on the screen in so blatant a fashion was irritating.

oh cool, we saw Little Men yesterday and I told tt it reminded me a bit of Margaret so we have to watch it now

I'm not sure how I felt about the film overall but jesus christ the big Williams/Affleck scene at the end is just utterly devastating

Surely this deserves a thread of its own?

saw this a few weeks ago & was surprised there wasn't a thread or much discussion (even a post search just revealed a lot of lists of titles on that dreadful tetris thread)

I saw a preview which meant I went in without having seen a trailer, which probably helped. I really liked it, I was chuckling pretty much start to finish while also finding it quite affecting

wasn't too sure about the broderick bit tho, it was funny but at a different pitch to the rest of the film, seemed like?

I liked Manchester by the Sea, but maybe not as much as I think I should have, and definitely not as much as I expected to. Affleck is fantastic, and his scene with Williams towards the end (spoiled a bit by Oscar clips, though far more powerful once you know what it is actually about) is indeed devastating. After a while, though, I started to wonder how it might have played minus all of the flashback scenes (and certainly minus the one brief but terrible dream sequence) which felt a bit too telling-not-showing for me. I did like Broderick's scene, though, mostly because I love Broderick as a middle-aged sad sack (see also, Election, and You Can Count on Me). Also great: Lonergan's cameo, and "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" (!!) scoring a sex scene.

I dunno, though--it may grow on me in time, but Lonergan's already made two of my favourite movies, so this one cannot help but feel like a very minor letdown in comparison.

Broderick has the funniest of his middle-aged schlump roles in awhile in Rules Don't Apply.

The three hour cut of Margaret is on Hulu (even though it says it's the 2 1/2 hour version). Incredible performances all around. We knew nothing about it before watching last night and absolutely loved it.

It's great, one of my all-time favorites.

I still think the original theatrical cut is just about perfect, too. Very lucky to have seen it in 35mm during its one-week Oscar-qualifying run at the Landmark in Los Angeles

and I wonder if Lonergan ever paid Matthew Broderick back that million dollars for extra editing time

Lisa Cohen is the most realistically unbearable precocious teenager in movie history