"Away From Her" - new film by Sarah Polley

It does look like something you'd dislike, though, LL.

hehehe you know me :)

I feel like I have a hard time being rational about movies like this, but apart from a few scenes that were a little too on-the-nose, I thought this was really really good. I particularly admired where Polley took the script in the final 20 minutes -- even if I would've made a different choice or two.

you're nuts!

jaymc can you give us more information?

About what? I don't know how much to spoil on a thread that's not specifically about this film.

I walked out of the theater last night and thought, I literally don't know how someone could find this "bad" on the whole. Maybe there are a few clunky "do you see"-type moments, maybe the script could've been shortened, maybe there are some character implausibilities -- but there are also so many scenes that are so audacious or beautifully shot or emotionally tense in a way that few films (that I see, at least) are.

But whatever. I guess I feel like if a movie makes me cry (as with Blue Valentine or All the Real Girls or Eternal Sunshine), then it's worth something, even if it's not perfect.

And it was Seth Rogen who did it!

Ok, got it.

You know I don't have the constitution to watch movies like that, but I appreciate that someone can. If I need them, they're there. Clarified!

From Polley (I don't think these are the objections of anyone in this thread, but I thought it was a sharp point nonetheless):

I guess what I find surprising are the assumptions people are making about what I intended as a filmmaker. So I feel like when people are really critical of Margot, there’s an underlying assumption that I thought this was a really great, flawless character, and they actually think she’s very selfish. When in fact I felt like she was selfish, too. I wrote her to be selfish and human and lovely and vulnerable and a total mess and really self-indulgent. Like, she’s supposed to be all of those things. We’re so used to, in film, having a protagonist that is essentially sympathetic, and we try not to rock the boat too much around our sympathies for our protagonists, so I think people have become very simplistic in the way they interpret a filmmaker’s intentions. I think in the days of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck characters, people accepted that you could have a protagonist that was a bit of a mess and a piece of work. And now if there’s anything flawed or unlikeable about your lead character, it’s assumed that you could not possibly have intended that, because it’s forbidden in mainstream film now.

See, she knows. She knows! I will see this eventually.

I hear there's mondo tits and pussies in this

i can't really talk more about this movie without SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER, so fair warning.

this was maybe the most cringe-y movie i've ever seen. nobody in the film seems to know english as a first language. i was put in mind of shyamalan exposition, frankly. the music cues are sub-anderson indie twinkly and the production design and costume was over-mannered and cutesy. it looked like a photoshoot. both of these people work at home in a tiny house (and he cooks!), the place would be a fucking wreck.

the movie is underpopulated. two of the main characters seem to have no family (esp. problematic when one character's family is a constant presence, and borderline overbearing), the second male lead has no friends or other human relations at all. none of the conflicts are plotted against a context of other adult commitments -- what time frame is any of this happening in?

i think the movie wanted a lot of credit for showing 'women as they are' (the scenes with older women at the Y), and it is certainly not afraid to show its main character as really childish and attention-starved. my viewing companion (female) liked it for showing the indecision and paralysis of a multi-year relationship where the partners' sense of long-term happiness is going out of sync.

i can't give it much credit for any of that because the conclusions are so brutally conservative: the scenario, stated plainly, is that a woman is married to a sweet, shlubby dude with a femme-y occupation who puts up with all her annoying bullshit. and so she dumps him for a cooler and hotter guy, whose 'soulfulness' is never not creepy (though idealized enough not to put the moves on her until after she leaves her husband, very nice). and in short order: sex montage! jay batman could have written this crap.

xp lawl yeah 'mondo' is one word for it i guess

as a schlubby husband lemme just say this trailer offended me

ok see now it sounds terrible again, and i STILL want to see it
it's a winning scenario either way

it may be a very real thing for women to want to bolt from their schlubs to run off with a manly pixie rickshaw driver but i'm gonna use my privilege to say FUCK THAT SHIT and damn this film straight to netflix instant. POW. go back to canadian horror movies and films about old folks sarah polley.

at least have it turn out the handsome dude has an std

so I think people have become very simplistic in the way they interpret a filmmaker’s intentions. I think in the days of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck characters, people accepted that you could have a protagonist that was a bit of a mess and a piece of work. And now if there’s anything flawed or unlikeable about your lead character, it’s assumed that you could not possibly have intended that, because it’s forbidden in mainstream film now.

uh "if you didn't like it, you didn't get it", not a good look S.P.

SPOILERS RE: GOOLE:

I don't know if it was conservative. Buggles/Fair Ride scene at the end suggested she was realising that she had to come to terms with happiness with herself/not rely on a dude or significant other to "fill the gaps"/etc

It just wasn't well done.

There are a number of scenes I really liked though...I even got pretty caught up in the reveal of the shower thing (her reaction is devastating). But too much try-hard, maybe.

(and he cooks!)

this is killing me for some reason

xp

this whole conversation is killing me

uh "if you didn't like it, you didn't get it", not a good look S.P.

She's way more charitable to her critics in the full interview:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/sarah-polley-take-this-waltz,82371/

Also, I don't understand the accusation of conservatism?

lol at the phrase "manly pixie rickshaw driver"

the music cues are sub-anderson indie twinkly

I had a problem with this at the beginning of the movie, but either it got better or I didn't notice it. Also, c'mon, of course Torontonians like this would be listening to Feist at parties.

and the production design and costume was over-mannered and cutesy. it looked like a photoshoot. both of these people work at home in a tiny house (and he cooks!), the place would be a fucking wreck.

Is the issue that you don't personally like the aesthetic, or that the aesthetic is implausible? "The place would be a fucking wreck" seems speculative. Seems like neither of them have full-time jobs out of the house, so maybe they have more time to clean.

the movie is underpopulated. two of the main characters seem to have no family (esp. problematic when one character's family is a constant presence, and borderline overbearing), the second male lead has no friends or other human relations at all.

The movie's principally about the relationship dynamics between three characters, so it didn't feel particularly underpopulated to me. Didn't bother me that Margot's family was unaccounted for -- maybe she doesn't have much of a family, maybe they don't live in the area, etc. The lack of any social context for Daniel is a fair point, but the film is seen almost entirely from Margot's perspective.

none of the conflicts are plotted against a context of other adult commitments -- what time frame is any of this happening in?

I think the majority of the action occurs over a couple of months in late summer 2010. (There's a reference in one scene to Margot and Daniel having known each other for five weeks.) I'm not sure what "other adult commitments" you'd want to see -- we see all of the characters working.

i can't give it much credit for any of that because the conclusions are so brutally conservative: the scenario, stated plainly, is that a woman is married to a sweet, shlubby dude with a femme-y occupation who puts up with all her annoying bullshit. and so she dumps him for a cooler and hotter guy, whose 'soulfulness' is never not creepy (though idealized enough not to put the moves on her until after she leaves her husband, very nice). and in short order: sex montage! jay batman could have written this crap.

Again, I don't understand what's conservative. Does the movie even have "conclusions" beyond just following its characters to the end of a story?

I agree that Margot can be annoying and needy; I agree that Daniel's "soulfulness" is creepy. I don't think the movie idealizes their relationship.

polley has a fair point re: stanwyck, davis etc and honestly the subject is great (that I'm like EEEEEEK just thinking about it is probably a good thing) but i'm pretty sure when those ladies played selfish folks the director didn't film them in adorable-vision and while I should reserve judgment until I see it for myself, the trailer did look cutesied up. If audiences think she's super-sympathetic to the unsympathetic lead that might be why.

that I'm like EEEEEEK just thinking about it is probably a good thing

Ha, my wife pointedly refused to see this with me b/c she was afraid it would affect her too much.

Thinking about it some more, I guess I do think there's some truth to the "manly pixie rickshaw driver" characterization. But isn't the movie in part about the conflict between the safe comfort of the familiar and the thrill of the new and unknown? Isn't what makes Daniel attractive to Margot precisely that she doesn't know much about him?

hot rickshaw action

My reactions were a mix of everything above. The I'm-Schmoopie-No-You're-Schmoopie stuff with Williams and Rogan was unbearable. The shower scene seemed pleased with itself; far from achieving a no-big-deal casualness, it clubbed you over the head--pay attention, this is a very big deal. I thought it was over 20 minutes before it actually was over. It tries for quite a bit--that's good. At times I thought "If I were a woman, I'd find this very moving"; it made me feel like I don't know anything about anything. The Buggles scene was nice--reminded me of Antoine on the Tilt-a-Wheel in The 400 Blows--and made a song I don't care about come alive. Michelle Williams is really good at crying. Sarah Silverman is as unnecessarily shrill here as she was in School of Rock.

Nitpicky geographical detail: there's no way you pass a Book City going from Queen and Dufferin to the Royal Theatre--not by rickshaw, not walking, not any way.

At times I thought "If I were a woman, I'd find this very moving"; it made me feel like I don't know anything about anything

This is really interesting to me!

And you know what, I agree with you about the shower scene but I'm essentially fine it. If you want to make your script a little leaden for a minute to make a political statement, more power to you.

I was thinking in particular of Daniel's long this-is-what-I'd-do monologue when they go for a drink. "That's how I should be talking? Rather than spouting opinions on Robert Altman films from 40 years ago? Jesus, I'm not even close."

Oh haha I grew up on AOL in the 90s so.

Baby talk def hard to take, but how much did I love that she put that on screen?

away from her was a horrible farce (almost typed "away we go," an even more horrific film), and this new one looks like an antrocity.

sp. on "antrocity" -- though that would make a great drive-in movie ca. 1957.

I inadvertently referred to it the other day as Away with Her.

Nitpicky geographical detail: there's no way you pass a Book City going from Queen and Dufferin to the Royal Theatre--not by rickshaw, not walking, not any way.

Sarah Polley, I apologize; I've been told by a friend that there was indeed a Book City on Queen, just west of Bathurst, for a short while a year or two ago.

i can't really say any of the complaints about this are off the mark. there is plenty of insufferable myopia and bullshit. but i actually think it took the "madam bovary" template too an interesting, sort of unexpected, place for me. perhaps a lost opportunity.

her family doc is a good story, pretty interestingly put together

using an old film thread for filmmaker's subsequent work = super lazy

don't blame me!

ain't

*slams fist on desk*

hey morbs if i wasn't super lazy i wouldn't be on ilx to begin with

point taken.

with TTW, i was convinced that the titular sequence with the revolving camera was a fantasy and was kinda shocked when it turned out to be real. it even seemed to keep with the emphasis on fantasy to that point in the movie.

So I really liked Take This Waltz despite an extremely rocky opening which, with its "afraid of connections" and having Williams take part in the mock-public flogging of an adulterer, showed Polley's insecurity with her material (her first non-adaptation/documentary?) in a "do you think they'll get it?" way. Luke Kirby struck me as unbearably creepy at first, and yeah, he could have used even a hint of backstory, but the scenes between Williams and Rogen (!!) were magnificent--having recently watched Leo McCarey's Make Way For Tomorrow, I mean it as the highest compliment that they had two or three scenes together that were as devastating as any in last half hour of that film. For her occasional clunkiness as a writer, though, Polley's an extremely skilled and observational filmmaker; a montage late in the film is brilliant in its economy (note how much is said in a moment where Kirby's character exits a bathroom). Not even close to perfect, but I'm honestly surprised at all the hate this film got, both here and other places.

I talked with two friends about Stories We Tell, which I hadn't seen till last week.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEWQGz60bag

Crypto's post above make me want to take another look at Take the Waltz, which I definitely didn't hate.