Margaret

[wilder]

MARGARET centers on a 17-year-old New York City high-school student who feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in a traffic accident that has claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course against the realities and compromises of the adult world.

Written and Directed by Kenneth Lonergan
Starring Anna Paquin, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon, Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno and Olivia Thirlby
Trailer - http://tinyurl.com/3v9ecsz
IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0466893
Release Date - September 30, 2011



If you haven't read about the backstory behind this long-delayed picture, you can gloss over it here - http://tinyurl.com/3oonoa9

[children with angels]

Been looking forward to this for a very long time. I really love You Can Count on Me.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Anna Paquin is a non-starter for me.

[Gold Trumpet]

Wait, we're grapeving a movie before the trailer? How will we be able to judge if its any good?

[wilder]

Trailer!

[pete]

is she still playing 17 year olds?

[Pubrick]

is she still playing 17 year olds?

keep in mind this was filmed a hundred years ago.

also, THIS is what's taken a hundred years to cobble together? it better be the best film ever made. i don't see why a simple story like that should have ever been four hours long.. maybe in order to make a huge statement out of a minor event you really have to pad the hell out of it. like a try hard student trying to write a profound essay out of a short piece of text. you gotta build up the significance so much that it gets to the point where every single one of the 10 thousand words is necessary in order to build the case.

obviously one person's death is not a minor event and that's the point of the film. but it does seem a bit heavy handed, which is fine if you use it as a short cut to grander themes, like the fact she was on her way to lose her virginity when the accident happened and NOW she's lost all kinds of innocence she didn't even know she had. amazing right? yes but why four hours. i dunno, it reminds me a lot of The Sweet Hereafter except in a big city with a smaller focus on two people instead of a small community where everyone is affected. egoyan's film even had the title taken out of a story that's read out in the film, where here it's a poem or something?

everyone's assignment this week is to rewatch the sweet hereafter.

[Stefen]

everyone's assignment this week is to rewatch the sweet hereafter.

One of the most underrated films of all-time. OF ALL-TIME!

[Ghostboy]

Post-production difficulties aside, this movie is pretty brilliant. I come from the like-but-didn't-love YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, but I really love this one almost 100%. Top ten material for sure, even top five. It's a shame that everyone (including the director) let this get so out of hand because this should have been given the royal treatment.

The Sweet Hereafter is also an amazing movie, but bus accident aside this is quite different.

Paquin is a little worrisome in the first scene and then quickly starts hitting it out of the park, over and over, one scene after another.

[Ravi]

but it does seem a bit heavy handed, which is fine if you use it as a short cut to grander themes, like the fact she was on her way to lose her virginity when the accident happened

That's not how it happens in the movie.

Post-production difficulties aside, this movie is pretty brilliant. I come from the like-but-didn't-love YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, but I really love this one almost 100%. Top ten material for sure, even top five. It's a shame that everyone (including the director) let this get so out of hand because this should have been given the royal treatment.

I felt the same way about YCCOM, and I thought this was fantastic. Despite (or probably because of) its sprawling nature, its a brilliant exploration of a lot of different things. Lisa's guilt about the woman's death, her righteous anger about the bus driver's lack of apparent guilt (which is more about her own guilt), and general teenage confusion and ways of dealing with her issues in roundabout ways. I suppose I'm making it sound more sordid than it is, but the film is grounded, and the characters are fully rounded and human. The characters usually don't communicate directly, but their issues and insecurities come out nevertheless. I particularly liked the scene where Matthew Broderick is arguing with a student about the interpretation of a passage from Shakespeare.

The Jean Reno subplot with Lisa's mother led to a moment that had me tearing up.

Lisa gets increasingly strident as the film goes on, so this is not an easy film to watch. But it makes sense for her character, and I was never bored during its 2 hr 30 min run time.

[MacGuffin]

Kenneth Lonergan Hopes The Longer Cut Of 'Margaret' Edited By Martin Scorsese Will Eventually Be Released
Source: Playlist

The rallying cry for "Margaret" continues from certain quarters of the critical community, with a #teammargaret hashtag now tracking its way across the Twittersphere. And the push for the film has resulted in some movement. New York City and Los Angeles critics will apparently be getting additional screenings for awards season consideration (although, they had press screenings already prior to the film's theatrical release in both cities), with Boston and Chicago to follow, and there is word bubbling that DVD screeners are being prepared for those in cities who did not get the film (though with voting deadlines fast approaching, that remains to be seen).

But the chatter behind the movie -- which has increased as the movie opens in the U.K. this weekend -- has gone a bit overboard in some instances. The Guardian in particular has accused Fox Searchlight of "burying" the film when the truth is likely far more complicated. With years spent in legal battles and editing suites, despite what some would have you believe, a cool critical reception (64% on Rotten Tomatoes and 58 on Metacritic) combined with a tepid box office performance (though yes, it's easily argued Fox Searchlight fell asleep on the marketing) has made this a tough release for the studio. In short, it's likely the film's delays cost the studio more than they had anticipated and printing up screeners for a movie that didn't gain a critical consensus probably didn't make much sense.

And in a way, it still doesn't. We understand the desire for critics, guilds and voting folks to see as much as they can before weighing in their votes for the Best Of The Year, but as we stated before, those awards come and go almost as soon as they are announced. They are ultimately a small part of a film's legacy. "Margaret" certainly won't be in the Golden Globes or Oscar race, and while it's nice that there's a push to get the messily masterful film some additional attention, we have to once again assert it's the director's cut we should be urging Fox Searchlight to release. And now, director Kenneth Lonergan confirms the unused, longer Martin Scorsese edit of the film is closest to the version that meets his full intentions, though he supports the current iteration.

"I support this cut wholeheartedly and want people to see and like it, because the actors deserve to be seen and appreciated for their amazing work," he wrote in his statement to Time. "But while I fully support the released cut, it's also no secret that I tried to get a subsequent version released, which Marty Scorsese very graciously helped with, which even more fully executes my complete intentions — a cut that I still hope will someday, somehow see the light of day."

Screeners are certainly nice things to get, and there is lots to love (and an equal amount that doesn't work) in the current version of "Margaret." But if we know there is a longer cut out there, one that much more closely (if not completely) realizes the movie Lonergan set out to make all those years ago, this is what the critics and movie lovers should be pushing for. Awards, recogniton and top ten lists are nice, but we think Lonergan would prefer people eventually got to see the movie he wanted to make in the first place. And that's a petition we'd gladly sign.

[JG]

Yo, this movie is dope. AND ITS PLAYING RIGHT NOW, GO SEE IT.

[chere mill]

AND ITS PLAYING RIGHT NOW, GO SEE IT.

haha where? it got a very small ny/la release. i have been on the lookout for it to come to seattle and it hasn't played anywhere near here. and i'm not driving all the way to nyc for the one theater where it is playing.

[polkablues]

Hey, you're from Seattle?  High five!

[samsong]

ravi, nice use of the word of the day.

taxing, clearly truncated, but brilliant.  performances are astonishing with paquin carrying the thing and lonergan flexes some stylistic muscle to varying degrees of success.  reminiscent of cassavetes in its exhaustive, flaws-as-virtue-of-human-existence/experience outlook and balls out emotional rawness, though this is still lonergan we're talking about so there's a level of restraint.  SEMI-SPOILERi'm always one to appreciate a film that culminates in a well-earned, powerful ending and this certainly has that going for it.  the finale completely blind-sided me and left me speechless.END SEMI-SPOILER

my top ten for the year has been amended accordingly.