Review of Take This Waltz (2011) by Manon M — 20 Sep 2012

A compelling movie dealing with the illusory nature of new love, a movie that makes you want to believe. All along you want to believe that "this is it", that Margot and Daniel might be soulmates, that they share true love. Their chemistry is obvious and they seem to be made for each other. Sarah Polley plays it right: she gives us the illusion all the way, only to leave is heartbroken and with both our feet on Earth at the end.

In Take this Waltz Polley demonstrates that beautiful, athletic, sexy people will gravitate toward each other with an irresistible force. But she inserts into the middle of the film a noteworthy scene that plays the crucial role of positioning the film as a sort of liberal sexual inclusiveness: it's set in the women's locker room of a public swimming pool. After a water-aerobics class, Williams and a host of other women shower and talk. Polley displays, with a refreshing frankness, a wide variety of women's bodies, from the modern ideal of slender shapeliness to a pudgy corpulence. Of course, all are beautiful; there is indeed an inherent beauty to the body. The underlying theme is that, though everyone is beautiful, some are more beautiful than others because physical nature will triumph.

Michelle Williams is - as always - stunning. She lives her role to the fullest, she is incredibly precise in her acting. Kirby is charming and real, and both together, they shine - the emptiness and heartache they both transport is groundbreaking and hits you without mercy.

Take this Waltz has moments that are quite sublime, and I leasily connected to Michelle Williams' character - above all, it is the uncomprising honesty in her character that is absolutely magnificent. The movie shows an almost perfect portrait of someone hooked on a feeling, someone high on believing. In the end, it's a story of misplaced faith.