Review of Margaret (2011) by Trailesque — 09 Nov 2020

I did not like this all that much, but because intelligent, well-made contemporary dramas are so rare these days, I feel like I need to give them some praise when I come across them. So without being a huge Lonergan fan, I want to lift him up. At least his films make me think.

This story does pose some problems. (SPOILER ALERT) First of all, the title. The main character is a teenager named Lisa, not Margaret. It turns Margaret is the name of the classic poem that her English teacher reads in class, a poem about becoming resigned to the fact of human suffering. While Lisa, does go through some pain, a good amount of it appears to come from her choices. Unfortunately, Lisa is not very likeable. The kid is brash, rude, and frequently hostile. She causes a horrible accident by distracting a bus driver, and then spends a good part of the movie trying to affix the blame to him. (The legal wrangling makes for some interesting drama). She enlists the class screw-up to rid her of her virginity and also seduces one of her teachers, while ignoring the attention of a nice young man who wants her. She fights bitterly with her actress mother, and misses her father, who is too busy with his career and his new wife to give her the attention she deserves.

A friend of mine called Lonergan an "emotional pornographer." There is something to that. He keeps ladling on the emotion and the interpersonal conflict, as if he is afraid that without it, the audience's attention might wander. But as I said above, Margaret is worth checking out, and we could use more movies like this.