Review: Margaret

A scene from 'Margaret'. Courtesy Fox Searchlight.

It hasn’t been an easy road for playwright Kenneth Lonergan to craft his follow up to the critically lauded You Can Count on Me. After completing principal photography on Margaret (which is only his second film as a director) in 2005, the film went though a six year editing process to bring the running time down from three and a half hours to a contractually obligated two and a half. Outside editors were brought in, occasionally to Lonergan’s chagrin, and the final cut of the film finally making its way to theatres in the quietest way possible is the result of Martin Scorsese creating a version of the film that Lonergan has approved and following a loan (reportedly of one million dollars) from actor Matthew Broderick so the project could be completed. The only thing that kept Fox Searchlight from outright firing Lonergan was the studio’s desire to save face amongst filmmakers. If Terrence Malick was going to get his sweet time on The Tree of Life, Lonergan was begrudgingly going to be extended the same courtesy.

The story of the film’s creation is probably just as interesting and intense as the film itself, which is also brimming with people on a search for misplaced justice. The whole thing might read like an utter fiasco when the production history is taken into account, but thankfully Margaret is a much better film than the bad press and bad blood between Lonergan, producer Scott Rudin, and Fox Searchlight might suggest. While definitely the work of a very talented man who let his storyline get away from him, it is a near landmark look at not only one woman’s youthful hyperbole and descent into sociopathic myopia, but also a mournful and loving look at the city that can breed such aggression.

Anna Paquin stars as Lisa, a 17-year-old daughter of a Broadway actress (Longergan’s wife J. Smith-Cameron) living in New York’s Upper West Side. Her sheltered existence is torn asunder by witnessing and partially causing a horrific bus accident. For some reason, Lisa seemingly feels the need to mature at a faster than normal rate, getting in touch not only with her normal teenage hormones, but also with a sense of civic duty. Lisa begins a crusade to get the driver of the fateful bus (Mark Ruffalo) fired. Overwhelmed by her own guilt and sense of justice (some might see it as the inability to shoulder all of the blame for the accident), Lisa refuses to back down in her fight to seemingly ruin the driver’s life even when the victim’s family wants little to do with the case outside of obvious monetary compensation.

That’s really only a very basis summation of the plot of the film, but there’s a whole lot more going on in Lisa’s life. Her mother has begun to date a South American software tycoon (Jean Reno), and her father who lives in California (played by Lonergan, himself) wants to maintain a relationship with his daughter despite being married to a woman who seems to prefer a fresh start without Lisa in their lives. Lisa’s affections are torn between the guy who genuinely likes her (John Gallagher Jr.), a cokehead Holden Caufield type (Kieran Culkin), and the geometry teacher she secretly pines for (Matt Damon). She has stopped caring about most of her classes, save for an American Civics class where she finds the only outlet for her rage in bitterly arguing with a half-Syrian student over the motives behind September 11^th and the very nature of freedom.

That last part is extremely important as no film has really dealt with the tragedy of the World Trade Centre bombing in such a subtle, yet confrontational way. Everything that Lisa does in the film is framed entirely by a privileged upbringing in a city that experienced a tragedy at the most furtive time to be a young adult. At every possible twist and turn in life that doesn’t go her way, she begins tilting at metaphorical windmills in a quest to find someone to blame. Lisa isn’t an entirely likable character and by the end of the film she is someone who does some unspeakably awful things (especially to Smith and Damon’s characters), but she isn’t someone who is beyond redemption. Every folly that Lisa commits is a folly of youth; the kind of mistakes one makes when they feign everything in a bid for adults to take them seriously.

The thrust of the film comes in scenes of debate and negotiation. Scenes that take place in the classrooms of Lisa’s privileged school are the glue that holds this sprawling love letter to a healing city together. It is here that the film’s theme of youthful indignation runs afoul of a still shell shocked group of core adults that tries to move on every time something unpleasant comes along. It’s a shame that the classroom scenes are so effective, since the scenes where Lisa has to talk to other adults seem almost like pedantic, foregone conclusions. They aren’t bad scenes, as they are filled with some great dialog and performances, but they often veer uncomfortably towards the melodrama that the film seeks to actively avoid.

As Lisa, Paquin is outstanding. Much like the film itself, her performance takes a little while to establish any sort of formal rhythm, but once the story has firmly taken root and the characters are established, she is flawless. Smith also turns in some commanding work as her embattled mother, and Jeannie Berlin shines as the best friend of the victim and the woman who uneasily becomes Lisa’s closest confidant. The only weak link of this wonderfully talented cast is sadly Reno, who is hopelessly miscast in a role that seems to have been cut down considerably in the editing room.

The script showcases Lonergan’s talents for creating well rounded characters and believable dialog, but his direction is the work of someone who simply let his own script get the better of him. Visually, the film is fairly bland with occasional delusions of grandeur. Lonergan tries some overly ambitious camera and staging techniques that he simply doesn’t have the experience to pull off. He films lengthy shots of the New York skyline that are meant to look great, but instead seem amateurish and forced. It’s as if he thought they would look great, but he never questioned why he exactly needed to keep them in the film.

In defence of the film’s running time, I can see why Lonergan had such a hard time making cuts to the meat of the film because in terms of acting and story everything that has made it to the screen is equally worthy of inclusion. There isn’t a bad scene in the film. In another comparison to his lead character, Lonergan suffers from the writer’s greatest flaw (and one this review is probably suffering from at the moment), which is to make everything as perfect as possible without any regard for pacing. I hesitate to say that the film would have worked better on stage where Lonergan is more of a natural, because it’s too long to even be successful there. Lisa and Lonergan both share the same shortcomings as the child in the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem that the film derives its title from (“Spring and Fall”). They both care far too much without fully knowing why.

Also, movie theatre marquees that advertise films like Flightplan and Roll Bounce aren’t the only signs that this film is already dated. Paquin could no longer pass for seventeen, and Damon looks like he just finished teacher’s college. The film also throws barbs at “the current administration,” which is obviously referring to George W. Bush, but given the character that Lisa becomes at the end of the film, it could credibly be talking about Obama, as well. The fact that the film exists almost as a period piece now adds a certain amount of charm and thought to the production and raises interesting questions about just how much society has moved on from 9/11 between 2005 and today.

It would have been interesting to see what Lonergan’s full cut of the film would have been like, but given the film’s dismal box office this past weekend in limited release in New York and Los Angeles, it is probably something that will be lost forever. While this version of the film is an audacious and sprawling mess, it’s still far better than the cursory, contractually obligated release it’s receiving.

Margaret opens in Toronto October 7.

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