Review of Take This Waltz (2011) by Spencer S — 04 Feb 2013

Writer and director Sarah Polley brings another lead female protagonist to the silver screen with a story about conflicted emotions. The story follows housebound married woman Margo (Williams), who writes pamphlets for tourist destinations, traveling somewhat but truly stuck in a house, in a neighborhood, with her husband Lou (Rogen).

The film mostly deals with their relationship, how claustrophobic Margo feels with him, how she becomes conflicted about whether she wants to be with her suave neighbor, an artist and rickshaw operator.

She flirts with the desire to stray, all the while still trying to reconnect with her husband, who seems oblivious to any wrongdoing or culpability in their marriage's distress. She continues to confront him time and again about how vulnerable she is and how he seemingly rejects her advances and perhaps even her love at every turn.

Michelle Williams, who I find delightful in every performance she gives, comes off as repressed to the point of combustion, and gives us a look into someone who is struggling between a rock and a hard place, whose decisions we don't always respect yet we understand, and who we ultimately root for, though we're unsure why.

Rogen also gives an impressively heartfelt performance as her husband, ranging between a foolhardy family man and husband, to a ravaged man whose life is turned upside down by forces he can't control.

Sarah Silverman plays her sister-in-law, in a portrayal that is candidly funny while also being very sad as she goes through the turmoil of alcoholism. Really, there are some devastating moments of human compassion and longing, though it does stray into surreal territory at the end, which I found distracting and took away from the rest of the film.

Still, a deeply rooted film in the human experience.