”I’m afraid of connections.”

This line of dialogue is spoken by the film’s protagonist, Margot, a pretty tomboyish journalist and the type of person who only ever exists within the world of films. She is in fact talking about the connections made at airports but the line is obviously smothered in laughably unsubtle subtext just in case the audience misses writer-director, Sarah Polley’s intent. Frustratingly it is representative of a film that is so on-the-nose and contrived that it is impossible to invest in this young woman’s dilemma. That dilemma comes in the form of a tentative affair with her neighbour whilst the romance in her marriage has long since subsided into passion-free contentment.

Polley’s debut feature, Away from Her,…

If someone were to point out my favorite thing(s) to read, even more than a great novel, it would be essays about something that affected them so deeply that they felt compelled to write about it. It can be short, or it can be 20 pages long. A great author of this approach would be Lester Bangs, who wrote beautifully indulgent music reviews in such an intensely personal way that were so resonant, that for the right reader, you might want to hug the guy for articulating exactly what music can really mean in a way that you’ve been trying to express yourself. I certainly didn’t always agree with Bangs, but I always identified with how insanely wonderful the experience…

“You seem restless. In a kind of permanent way.”

I'm sorry, but move over Ingmar Bergman because writer-director Sarah Polley with Take This Waltz made the best marriage film I've seen. Yes, Waltz skirts the oft-explored infidelity issue, but this one is about how even the thought and fleeting fantasy of sleeping with someone else can have a paralyzing power over you until the thoughts themselves become its own drug.

Michelle Williams plays Margot, a woman who has probably been a very good person for 30 years of her life and then chooses one critical month to be bad. And she changes too radically all because of it. Williams is an actress whom can play anything, a famous person or…

I like what Sarah Polley wanted to do with this film.

I like that she tried to display that je ne sais quoi that exists between couples, those moments that can only come into existence when two personalities live together, those moments that you can't recreate in a relationship with someone else. It is a difficult thing to capture on film when you think about it. That might be why Polley choose to focus on the silly games Margot (Michelle Williams) and Lou (Seth Rogen) played. The way we have of being silly with our partners is probably the most distinguishing thing about partnerships. The exact type of silliness can't be transported, as is clearly demonstrated when Margot spends time…

Straight up, this movie looks absolutely gorgeous. Some dude named Luc Montpellier is the cinematographer and I think that the Canadian government should pay this guy a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year, for the rest of his life, just because of how gorgeous this movie looks. I guarantee that Toronto has never, and will never, look better in a film. All the colors are rich & vibrant, and the camera movement is out of sight. See this movie just to see how gorgeous it looks. Now, on to the film itself.

I see the film as the idea of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl put into a real world person and how terrible that idea actually is. The character…

Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz examines a young woman’s crisis of love and commitment without judging her sensibilities. Michelle Williams is absolutely wonderful, who radiates a certain kind of glow that accentuates Polley’s warm, sensitive direction. However, Take This Waltz is not a perfect film. The film has structural and tonal problems that doesn’t feel right, yet somehow the emotional transparency that it gives is as potent as it is gratifying that overshadows its weaknesses.

The overall feeling of this film is very lighthearted, but it packs such powerful emotional expression about people expressing their discontent and even the idea of surrendering to one’s decision of love. In this film, I root for every character. I didn’t side between those…

Review In A Nutshell:

Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz is a frustrating experience, it provides audiences with a look at the difficulties of marriage, how there will be days where one would lost that sense of spark, and everyday becomes mundane and uneventful; protagonist Margot is finding herself slowly frustrated with her position, craving for something more, which an offer does arise with her across the street neighbour, Daniel.

Polley simply didn’t want the film to be your run of the mill take on marriage, friendships, and temptations; it attempts to become something much more, by attempting to flesh out the protagonist, provide her with complexities that make her feel like a real character, rather than a tool to push…

What a strange, miraculous little picture.

It seems to belong to the same category of nice indie dramedies that although competent are categorically inessential and end up quickly forgotten after the next one comes out - and according to all the lukewarm reviews it's exactly what it is - but upon a mood-appropriate watch reveals itself to be this terrifically peculiar array of literary, theatrical and cinematic language that's as profoundly poignant as potentially alienating.

It will jump from a realism-bound, carefully orchestrated unbroken shot of a common affair, to these impossibly eloquent monologues about, for example, the fear of having fear and struggling with not letting yourself succumb to momentaneous melancholy (which, damn), and later go on these magical…