Review of Margaret (2011) by Taylor B — 23 Sep 2014

I can't remember seeing a film so wildly unfocused and just all over the map. It starts out with an interesting premise and an interesting main character played quite excellently by Anna Paquin. Unfortunately though, the film deviates from its main plot and goes on many wildly different tangents exploring many different ideas that truly have nothing to do with the central premise but seem to just be thrown in for possibly more flavor but they end up overwhelming the film and deviating it from the main focus.

As a result the film feels overstuffed,over packed and goes on way too long. There are times I got bored with it and would hop onto my iPod and look up movie reviews or check Facebook, conscious of what was going on screen but just kind of tuning out.

Many of the many performances are actually quite good with Anna Paquin giving a very good central performance and the supporting characters played by Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo are also well done. But as I said the characters and their personal problems get drowned out in a film that just doesn't seem to know what it's focus should be and seems to wander into too many plot lines and as a result the central ideas are watered-down.

This is a film that easily could've been trimmed by about 90 minutes depending on whether or not you're watching the extended cut or the theatrical version. The screenplay also needed some very harsh trimming before the film ever went into production.

On top of that the direction of the film is pretentious and many times just plain bad. Their are times when too much is going on and you can't hear what the main characters are saying. The director also has this unnecessary tendency to make these large panning shots that have nothing to do with the film and it feels like the director is trying to draw more attention to himself and how he is directing a film in the story itself.

Margaret could've been an and emotionally heart wrenching and I'm tearjerking experience of a film which I think is what the director wanted. But due to his own poor direction and overstuffed screenplay that goes off in way too many different directions Margaret does not have the emotional impact that it could, or should have had and instead has this just mindnumbing feeling of excess.