Kenneth Lonergan's long-awaited Margaret sounds like a sprawling, not-unworthy, rough draft of a movie. Glenn Kenny reviews. (Here's a 2009 LA Times story on the film's troubled history.).
Does it all work? Not entirely. There's a bit of awkwardness to the articulation of the prevailing consciousness, or self-consciousness, at times. I really didn't need the bus driver to be quite so lumpen, or quite so much from a Bay Ridge that is a much less compelling product of Lonergan's imagination than his Upper West Side is. Poor Jean Reno is almost laughably miscast.The swing-for-the-fences approach, when it becomes obvious, sometimes leads to near-disaster. Indeed, at the film's finale, Lonergan seems to be lurching toward a cornball universalist Sweeping Gesture, and he fortunately regrounds things back in the specific for the final shots. But on the whole, and given a few hours to let it sink in, I'm thoroughly impressed. As many of you migh tbe aware, Margaret has a tangled and unpleasant post-production history. It was shot over five years ago and spent a considerable amount of time in editing rooms, and in civil courts, before receiving its current limited release. Several of its lead actors, most prominently Matt Damon and the very great Anna Paquin, look almost comically younger than they do today; indeed, on the evil Twitter machine I wisecracked that Fox Searchlight might want to market the film as being about a time-travel device that puts movie stars in touch with their younger, fresher selves. (Also, hey, look, there's young[er] Olivia Thirlby!) Armed with such information, critics will of course run with it, and Margaret has taken some brickbats for its ostensible lack of focus and "punishing" running time. I dunno; even though there were times I thought it wasn't quite making it, I was sufficiently drawn into its world that in retrospect I could have more than stood it being quite a bit longer.
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