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

After five years in the editing room, and the courts, it's out -- just barely -- and Paquin and Jeannie Berlin are both great in it. Catch it while you can:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/10/margaret-builds-momentum-with-critics-but-will-audiences-find-it.html

http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/film/2002495/review-margaret

Nice one, Dr M. I loved You Can Count On Me, for a long time it looked like this would never get released.

Glenn Kenny also liked it.

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/10/margaret.html

v interested in this, assume i wont see it for months

YES!!!

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

Yeah, I really want to see this.

(except in Matthew Broderick's English class)

xp

as of friday you all won't be seeing this until next year, unless you're in philly or boston

the critical reaction seems much stronger than the studio anticipated

it's also playing in Montreal till at least next Thursday!

i think the situation is a little more complicated than that xpost

i've been meaning to bump the sidney pollack thread re: this, but it deserves its own thread. it was much better than i expected (WAY better), but at the same time you can tell its a really fucked up version of what lonergan wanted it to be... there's some brilliant stuff in it though (the scene where emily tears into lisa) (morbs otm - jeannie berlin is great)

austin, atlanta, and toronto next week as well

its already playing in atlanta

she fuck any vampires in this?

oh sorry, congrats to those cities

our market is shut out, like it's absolutely not happening

Jeannie Berlin gets an ace film part once every 39 years.

Huh, looks like tomorrow's my last chance to see it.

The reviews have been mixed, but the box office not good -- less than $1000 per screen last weekend in 14 theaters.

I found the UWS classroom donnybrooks over history and terrorism entirely convincing.

Liked this a lot, though I'd be be eager to see the "non-Scorsese cut" (if it indeed exists).

xp I found them unconvincing at first, before I realized they were taking place in a classroom full of "privileged liberal Jews."

Sympathetic to Lonergan's vision, but I find it hard to imagine what an extra half-hour would've done for this film.

Yeah, it was long enough. 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'm gonna see this tonight in Austin. Hopefully I can time my bathroom break correctly.

149 minutes ain't no thing

Yeah the real fools are the ones planning to catch Turin Horse and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia back-to-back at a local fest here in Mtl this weekend. That takes some kinda perseverance I can't match (having only seen the former).

I missed the four-hour Mysteries of Lisbon last weekend because its only showing interfered with dinner plans.

I'm guessing most of you recognized Lonergan as Lisa's dad? I didn't know he was in it, and probably haven't seen a photo or interview in years, but he has an Irish-artist lumpenness about him.

I recognized him.

I really, really liked this. Been thinking about it a lot since I saw it last weekend. I hope we get to see a "director's cut" at some point.

I wasn't 100% sure it was him right away, but yeah. He's in YCCOM, too, as the priest.

this movie is still buzzing around in my head.

i think, though, that in large measure that it's about the perils of empathy, and the ways we protect ourselves from it. (witness every single political discussion revolves around rejecting the very possibility of the other's real suffering or grievances.) Lisa's initiation into adult life is then, i guess, about developing this capacity for rejecting empathy, perhaps? (or the ways empathy gets refracted into things like opera..)

that's just a first pass at it, as I'm sure there's other things going on.

I recenrly saw A Seperation and I kept thinking back to this film - intense family-related dramas that also comment on their societies at large, both revolving around injury/accident (to varying degrees). I think this is by far the richer movie, though.

*A Separation

that's high praise. psyched to catch this/if i can ever catch this.

Bear in mind I don't like A Saparation as much as virtually everyone else seems to.

hence the constant misspelling.

huh. just didn't love it or had problems with it? cause part of its strength was it just being unindictably thorough & well put together, to me, so i can understand how not being sold on the contents would change things somewhat.

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/

obv i'll never know what i would have thought w/out knowing the backstory but boy howdy could you tell they had a hard time putting this together.

can't really call it 100% successful but the things it does well it does amazingly well.

Watched this this morning (in one sitting, a miracle for me). I thought I was watching the extended version, but I guess the 150-minute cut is...what? longer than the theatrical, but shorter than the full thing? Very ambitious--the only recent American films I can think of with comparable sprawl are The Tree of Life and The Master. I liked Margaret better than either of those, flaws and all. Found the central dilemma fascinating; took the whole film, but was glad that Paquin finally verbalized her own complicity. The classroom scenes were great--as someone pointed out earlier, my favorite was Broderick's exasperation with the one student's Shakespeare interpretation (even though I think most any teacher would have welcomed the alternate reading). Paquin's confrontation with Ruffalo was excellent. Disagree with someone else upthread: I thought the big cathartic scene with Paquin and Berlin (while looking at pictures) was the film's most overwrought. Agree with Morbius that the Damon business at the end came out of left field and didn't really seem necessary. And I thought the ending was weak. But, already a big fan of You Can Count on Me, I hope Lonergan keeps aiming this high.

the theatrical was 150

I thought the big cathartic scene with Paquin and Berlin (while looking at pictures) was the film's most overwrought

i didnt read any catharsis there...

Yeah, I just checked and that was the theatrical. I hope I didn't miss an icon for the longer version on the DVD menu.

I know you were one a few people who found that scene to be the film's most important. It just seemed very shrill to me, and the kind of scene where people start screaming at each other because it's time for a scene where people start screaming at each other. But, going by this thread, I'm in the minority there.

Didn't they do something wacky with the release like put the theatrical cut on blu-ray and the extended one on dvd and released it as a DVD/Blu-ray combo?

yep thats what they did

That's actually what I thought I was renting--there were three little tags affixed to the shelf--but it seems I was given a DVD-only version. I wouldn't watch it again for the missing 36 minutes; I was able to glean a couple of things I missed from the posts above.

Rental dvds are theatrical cut-only, which I think is the only way that versin is availible in that format.

The Canadian combo pack said it contained both versions... but the blu-ray and dvd contained the same shorter version.

clemenza, have you been to NYC? We scream at each other a lot.

I checked the Blu ray out of the library not knowing about how it was packaged the film but only got the DVD. After finding out I'd watched the extended cut, I was happier for it.

(xpost) A couple of times, yes; no one screamed at me, possibly because everyone sensed I was from out of town.

I meant to mention what I thought was the funniest line in the film (paraphrasing from memory): Kieran Culkin's "Yeah, but we're gonna skip that for now and keep moving ahead." And I think my favorite performance, admittedly a small part, was Jeannie Berlin's lawyer friend.

Damn, I was trying to figure out where I'd seen Paquin's younger brother--as himself in Mad Hot Ballroom!

Just saw this last night, the extended version (which was the only one they had at the actual, physical video rental store we got it from). It's exceptional. Has anyone compared it to the Sweet Hereafter? Both are about bus accidents, both about about the decision a young female must make for her witness statement.

I saw whatever version was on HBO and really liked it.

such a perfect movie for HBO - lots of stars, episodic, easy to get sucked in if you're flipping by, starring Anna Paquin as a young Lena Dunham

Lonergan to adapt Howards End for TV.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/10/kenneth-lonergan-to-script-howards-end-miniseries-bbc-playground-colin-callender/

Sure, why not?

haha damn

http://badassdigest.com/2012/02/16/film-crit-hulk-smash-22-short-thoughts-about-margaret#comment-1137804165

ha ha

this fucking film

Hadn't heard of this film pre the last revive, but read up on it, thought it sounded good, and bought / watched it yesterday. Really great.

Lonergan's play This Is Our Youth to be revived for Chicago and Broadway, starring ageless 'teens' Michael Cera and Kieran Culkin

http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/04-2014/michael-cera-to-make-broadway-debut-in-this-is-our_68183.html/

Finally saw this last night, the 3 hour cut. Yes it could do with tightening up but I don't think that detracted too much. Thought the sound design was interesting with overlapping conversations and eg. passing traffic mixed as high as the main dialogue and making it difficult to focus, kind of suggesting how we all have these competing personal narratives struggling to make sense of the world. Really great film.

watched the 3-hr cut and immediately wanted to rewatch

not sure what was cut from it but i don't think anything needed to be. or there were a million things he could cut that were of equal significance/insignificance, because nearly everything seems like a subplot. the film enters this flat, sequential rhythm where every scene, even the Big ones, seem equally important and there's enough there in each that i wouldn't want to lose them. maybe they could've ended the legal drama sooner but then we'd miss the great image of lisa screaming into a machine (maybe the one time in the entire movie where the camera concentrates on something other than a human body or a skyscraper -- it was an impt break in that rhythm for me) or the all the matt damon shit, but i found that whole thing an interesting parallel/practically a retelling of the bus scene. i'm probably caught up in the hype of the whole "directors cut = true vision!!!" thing but i'm tickled (and sympathetic wrt) that lonergan must've found everything he included so necessary to lisa's story. i believe him!

there were at least 3 Great scenes in this

i haven't seen this for awhile, but how far removed the conference call scene is from the accident it's discussing, while still ostensibly being tethered to it, & how much is being folded into the incredibly insubstantial exchange that's happening -- it's so profound, & is such a moment, & yeah is the argument for the film accommodating just such a weight of incident & digression.

new lonergan & matt damon flick forthcoming btw. one day.

just remembered the other inanimate object the movie cared about, the shopping cart -- both stand-ins for human bodies obv

also the wiki cast list insists that ruffalo's wife's name was margaret (it was just "Mrs. Maretti" in the end credits iirc)

totally want to see this again

For This Is Our Youth, does anyone have advice on seating or when to go?

Second viewing, long version. I don't know how much was added, but the one scene that clearly wasn't there the first time I saw it--the drama group getting in touch with their feelings about each other--was pretty awkward (although undercut nicely by Kieran Culkin's benign ridicule). The rest of the film held up fine.

It's such a sprawl...What I thought especially strong this time was the mother-daughter stuff. One scene that bothered me the first time--Jeannie Berlin going off on Paquin--didn't this time. Paqin gives one of those Agnes Moorehead-in-Ambersons (or Julianne Moore-in-Magnolia) performances that is so odd and so intense that you're bound to have a strong reaction in one direction or the other. Liked both lawyers a lot. (The second one has a great deadpan moment, something like "You're going to get a lot of money"/"What's the point of doing this?"/"You're going to get a lot of money.") I've never set foot in a private school, but I found that one class (the one where they scream at each other about terrorism and Israel) a little weird. The teacher runs the class, but he has an assistant there to moderate?

I loved the classroom scenes. Was the getting-in-touch-with-feelings one a different one than the discussion on the "as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods" speech from King Lear (I haven't seen it since it first hit DVD)? Cause if so, that may have been my fave scene in the whole film.

Different scene, yes. The one you're remembering, where Broderick gets into the argument with the student, that's also one of my favourites (even though, as I said a few months ago, I think most teachers would welcome the disagreement). The theatre group is just in the long cut, and it verges on self-parody--Culkin saves it at the end.

New movie:
http://www.rogerebert.com/sundance/sundance-2016-manchester-by-the-sea

That's good news! I look forward to seeing it in 2021.

this one seems fully edited

"Anchored by a breathtaking performance from Casey Affleck"

is this possible

Excited about another film from this guy. Not so much another film starring an afleck as a working class dude from Boston

oh c'mon he's been good in plenty of things xp

Kyle Chandler is kinda cornering the market on small-but-memorable roles in American indies, huh

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/07/the-cinematic-traumas-of-kenneth-lonergan

manchester by the sea is p great imo. loved casey affleck in it

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.