It will be perhaps my greatest cinematic accomplishment of the summer if I can somehow manage to walk out of a viewing of Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz without feeling an abject loathing for Michelle Williams. Even now, watching the film’s longest trailer to date, I am filled with a deep, hissing hatred for her character, Margot. That is actually a good thing ‐ it shows just how effective even a monologue- and music-heavy piece of marketing for the film can be, setting the stage for a big, gorgeous, moving film.
Polley’s latest film stars Williams and Seth Rogen as seemingly happy married couple Margot and Lou. But when Margot meets a handsome new dude (Luke Kirby) who, oops!, just so happens to live next door to the pair, all bets are off and Margot struggles against her deep and unresolved desires for Kirby’s Daniel. Surprise ‐ she doesn’t succeed, “succumbing to the moments” that this monologue skirts around.
Think about the meaning of wedding vows and check out the trailer for Take This Waltz after the break.
While the film’s official synopsis doesn’t tell us much more beyond what we already know, it’s important to note the way in which this familiar knowledge is presented ‐ which is to say, sympathetic to Margot and her desires:
“When Margot, 28, meets Daniel, their chemistry is intense and immediate. But Margot suppresses her sudden attraction: she is happily married to Lou, a celebrated cookbook writer. When Margot learns that Daniel lives across the street from them, the certainty about her domestic life shatters. She and Daniel steal moments throughout the steaming Toronto summer, their eroticism heightened by their restraint. Margot finally gives in to desire and in doing so, discovers some unsettling truths about herself. Swelteringly hot, bright and colorful like a bowl of fruit, Take This Waltz leads us, laughing, through the familiar but uncharted question of what long-term relationships do to love, sex, and our images of ourselves.”
Take This Waltz is currently slated for a limited release on June 29th. [/Film]
