Take This Waltz Review: Sarah Polley’s disturbingly real vision

Take This Waltz Review: Sarah Polley’s disturbingly real vision

I watched this today because I saw it on sale on Bigpond movies. Usually I’ve only been reviewing new films that I’ve seen in cinemas but I feel like reviewing this one because I want to justify the rating I’m giving it.

Take This Waltz stars Michelle Williams as Margo, a woman married to Seth Rogan’s Lou, who meets a man on holiday (Luke Kirby) whom she begins to get feelings for. When their plane lands, they find out they actually live on the same street. Now this seems like quite a cliche but that is where the cliche’s end. This is a dark comedy, but not because the humour is dark, but the themes in it are so real.

Michelle Williams is so real as Margo. You can see the struggle that she has when she sees her husband, and feels like she’s drifting away from him even though he’s like the nicest guy ever. Every time she’s with Luke Kirby’s Daniel, she always seems restrained, but you can see that she is really into him.

While the performances in this film were all fantastic, including Seth Rogan and Sarah Silverman in very dramatic roles, and the story was fine, its just a sad film. Not because someone dies or anything, its just that you know what is happening and there’s no way it can stop and in this scenario, nobody wins. It’s depressingly real, and I liekd the realism. There was one scene in particular that I loved and that was when Margo and Daniel were on a ride having so much fun, with all these flashing light and spinning wheels, and all of a sudden it stops, mid song, revealing the dull silver walls and the fat ride operator who opens their safety harnesses. The expression on their faces drop, and it reall shows off one of the many themes in the film, that everything good ends, or that new things get old. one of the two.

I can really appreciate Polley’s work on this film, but I can’t give it higher than a 6/10 because of how I felt after the film. It’s a great movie, but it is not one I’d watch again. Blue Valentine, also starring Williams, shows a failing marriage, and ends on a sad note, but that is one of my favourite all time films. Technically, it’s great though, and is worth a watch. Anything I rate 6/10 or higher I liked to some degree and would recommend it.

6/10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_This_Waltz_(film)