Review: "Take This Waltz"

In one critical early scene of Take This Waltz, Sarah Polley's follow-up to her acclaimed debut Away From Her, Margot (Michelle Williams) tells Daniel (Luke Kirby) that she hates being in between things. The statement proves to be true, and it echoes out across the film in multiple ways. Waltz is decidedly lighter than Away From Her, though it still boasts Polley's keen powers of observation when it comes to details that exist between couples or among family members. Yet where Away From Her had a general sense of forward momentum that built to a point surrounding its central characters, Polley gets a little lost in the details of Take This Waltz. As a result, her sophomore effort, despite containing any number of admirable aspects, feels redundant and overly long, its point(s) lost among the details.


Williams's Margot is a freelance writer living in Toronto, who's married to a cookbook author (Seth Rogen). The couple have any number of little tics, including their own forms of teasing and baby talk, as well as an inside joke where they describe fanciful ways to torture each other. While returning from a short trip/assignment, Margot meets Kirby's Daniel, and the two hit it off in a weird sort of way (she doesn't seem to mind his semi-aggressive taunts). As it turns out, Daniel is a neighbor of Margot's, living just across the street, and working as a rickshaw operator around town. As the two interact more and more, Margot examines her marriage and contemplates the possibility of doing more with Daniel than just chit-chatting. And of course, there's a bit of a moral. That's where things start to head south.


The central problem with Take This Waltz is that we get an understanding of the film's main question and message so early, yet the film remains stuck in a drawn-out period of inaction. For about 3/4ths of its 2 hour duration, the film is basically on a loop of scenes illustrating Margot's relationship with her husband and her slowly (sloooooooooooowly) budding relationship with Daniel. Rather than make the point and move on, Polley insists on making sure that the audience has five or six opportunities to "get it," throwing in stolen glances and casually pained expressions that ought to register much more than they really do. At one point Dan casts a glance of heartfelt longing at Margot, and I was tempted to let out a laugh to relieve myself of the crushing obviousness of the scene's attempt at greater importance.


And once the film gets to its big moment, set to the titular Leonard Cohen song, there's little that's surprising about the outcome. We've known the moral of the story for so long that by the time it arrives (however impressive the execution) it's difficult not to be left thinking, "well, duh." Worse, the film decides to chug on for almost another half hour before drawing to a close. Thankfully, it gives Margot a clear arc, but the journey to the end of said arc is too damn long for its own good. Barring a dramatically convenient subplot involving Margot's pseudo ex-alcoholic sister (Sarah Silverman), everything progresses exactly as we expect it to, without the necessary dramatic tautness to make it feel like a worthwhile journey.


That's not to say that Take This Waltz is without its merits. Williams is wonderful in the role, taking Margot's conflicted feelings (along with the above-mentioned fear of the in between) and fleshing them out with a radiant subtlety. In different hands, the character could have felt frustratingly inert. While that remains true of many scenes, it's most certainly not true about Williams' work, which is always striving to make Margot's developing dilemma feel like it's progressing (no matter how minimal the progress). The rest are in fine form as well. Rogen and Kirby both make effective opposites, with Rogen personifying a warm (albeit purposefully stagnant) sense of comfort, while Kirby has just the right touch of excitement about him without being over the top. Some of the material Kirby has can feel tone deaf, but even then the actor remains quite watchable. The surprise, despite her limited time, is Silverman, who invests a surprising amount of nuance into her role. This isn't a case of silly stunt casting where a comedian is stuck playing herself. Silverman brings a nice bit of gravitas to an underdeveloped character, one whose struggles probably deserve their own film (in case Ms. Polley ever decides to make a sequel or spin-off...). Even when the material falters, and it does falter quite a bit, these four significant roles hit just about all of the right notes, and at times it's enough to overcome the glaring weaknesses.


Credit should also go to the technical side of the film. Forgoing the idea that small films need to have a bland, washed out look, Take This Waltz positively pops with a summery glow, bolstered by the cinematography's emphasis of colors like red and green. The soundtrack is also a nice touch, if a bit cliched, all quiet guitar twangs and the like. When these elements gel with what works, Take This Waltz proves quite compelling. Unfortunately, the film is a bit of reverse Impressionism. The individual pieces work up close, but once you step back to look at the work as a whole, nothing ever comes together quite like it should.


Grade: C+/C

Review: "50/50"

Putting the words 'cancer' and 'comedy' together doesn't really make sense on paper, unless it's part of some scathing, hugely irreverent satire on the latest episode of South Park. As a subject matter/plot device, it's easy for cancer to transform narratives into either the relentlessly depressive, or the shamelessly manipulative. As far as comedy goes, the notion that the genre could play host to a story about such a disease makes us recoil; it makes us wonder if the resulting film will somehow exploit or mishandle the material to even grosser effect. While I have no doubt that some such film either exists or will exists, the makers of 50/50 can rest assured that their film is both tasteful and honest, all while succeeding at both its dramatic and comedic moments.

After a brief opening where we see Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) taking his morning run, Jonathan Levine's film doesn't waste much time cutting to the chase: Adam has cancer in the form of a malignant tumor in his lower back. We know barely anything about Adam save that he has an artists girlfriend named Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and that his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) drives him to work because he never learned how. Other than that, we don't get to discover Adam's character until we see him go through the various stages of treatment. It's a structure that could have led 50/50 to fail; without knowing much about him before, we're left to care for him strictly out of his situation, and not out of who he is as a person.

Yet somehow director Jonathan Levine and his marvelous cast pull it off. Rather than try and turn the film into and all-out comedy, or some sort of rauch fest a la Superbad, Levine and company navigate the potential minefield that 50/50 presents effortlessly, never once coming to an uncomfortable point in their execution of the material. Whether scenes are dramatic, comedic, or switch between the two, it all flows together fluidly, making the film a comfortable viewing experience, despite its look at such a terrible disease. This isn't to say that the film glosses over Adam's struggle. But, instead of beating us over the head with shots of Adam's chemo-ridden body, or packing every encounter between Adam and his therapist (Anna Kendrick) with tearful confessions about his life, the script gives us just enough to understand. What begins as a young man trying his best to cope with terrible circumstances, seamlessly evolves into a graceful look at the protagonist figuring out how to live his life, and how to manage his various relationships.

Apparently a fan of movie titles with the numbers 5 and 0, Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns in strong work as a man with a disease that's hit him far too young. From his initial denial, to his forced calmness, to his eventual realization that he very well might die, Gordon-Levitt handles every facet with great skill, and his chemistry with the supporting cast works on all fronts. Those around Adam built as characters simply via their reactions to his situation, but the cast makes them all work. The stand-out of the supporting players is a toss-up between Anjelica Huston (as Adam's clingy mother) and Kendrick. The former's character is a bit of a smother mother, but the script doesn't dismiss her and assume that Adam's initial attitude towards her is 100% justified. Kendrick, in a more prominent role, takes a character who could have been nothing but a sounding board for Adam, and makes her a standalone character. There aren't any scenes oriented around her role, but Kendrick and the script bring out just enough in her interactions with Gordon-Levitt to give us a sense of who she is. Seth Rogen, as Adam's friend Kyle, while still something of a goof-off/schlub, reins it in here, delivering one of his more measured performances, if not his most measured, to date.

The lone exception from the cast is Dallas Howard, or rather, her character. It's not that the actress herself misses the mark, but the script makes her an antagonist when it doesn't really need to. All this is good for is to set up another potential relationship, and really, isn't the cancer a big enough "villain?" This one small issue aside, however, the characters are nicely drawn, and help the film's resolution (along with the tears it inspires) feel earned. Special mention should also go to Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer as older patients who befriend Adam in chemotherapy; their roles are small, but every scene the pair have is vital to understanding Adam's evolution over the course of the film. It's characters like these, along with Adam himself, that make the film's sense of humor work so well.

On the technical front there's not much worth mentioning, although there is some nice visual work in a scene where Adam strolls out of a treatment session high on pot. The closest to a standout are the musical contributions from Michael Giacchino (Up), which accent the film nicely when used, without ever becoming melodramatic or saccharine. Like the film itself, the score (along with the soundtrack choices) always feel tasteful. Based on the life of one of Rogen's close friends, 50/50 beautifully captures the honesty of the account. What could have so easily been uncomfortable, manipulative, is instead an exceptional look at one man facing one of life's greatest adversities.

Grade: B/B+