Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret is a sprawling, messy movie about the sprawling, messy life of a teenage girl that takes place in the sprawling, messy confines of post-9/11 New York City. This movie is too long, it has too many characters, it contains too many ideas, and it’s probably too complex. Consequently, it isn’t perfect. But all that stuff makes for a rich, rewarding experience nonetheless. Margaret tells the story of Lisa (Anna Paquin), a pretty and smart high school student who has yet to figure out how to harness her beauty and intellect to do any good; so consequently she walks around with an air of aloofness and superiority. This all changes, however, when her bold, careless behavior contributes to the accidental death of a woman who ends up dying in her arms. Traumatized by the situation, Lisa goes about trying to digest what she has experienced, but without the emotional maturity necessary to work through such a terrible thing, she ends up coping by punishing everyone around her. And watching her do so is such a frustrating yet engrossing experience that I don’t feel like I’m going to be able to discuss this film without just going off on a formless tirade in reaction to who her character is and what she does.
Margaret is an interesting look at the teenage mindset, or more specifically, the mindset of the precocious, smart beyond their years teenagers that usually become characters in movies. The difference between Lonergan and other storytellers is that he realizes precocious youngsters aren’t charming, they’re awkward and doomed. Teenagers are basically horror movie monsters that are insufferable to be around unless you’re a teenager yourself. Young people who are developed beyond their years in one respect but are still children in all the others have a tough time navigating the world. They’re almost guaranteed to take on things that they’re not yet ready to handle, and they’re almost guaranteed to have some period of breakdown. It’s why the former child star/current drug addict thing is such a cliché. All of these dangers are lurking in Lisa’s life. When we’re introduced to her she’s naively cocky, so much so that she doesn’t seem to realize that the accident has knocked her down to reality. She’s so used to thinking that she’s in control, that she has it all figured out, that she’s fundamentally better than everyone around her, that she has no way of processing the realization she’s a fallible person, and probably even a bad person; so she rages against it, lashing out in anyway she can, and blaming everyone but herself for the situation she’s in.
Childhood prodigies gifted with above average intelligence are generally smarter than everyone around them, but they’re not yet smart enough to realize that smarts don’t equal wisdom. The teenagers in this film feel that they’re better than adults, because they’re still idealistic and they’ve yet to let life beat them down. But that’s because they lack the wisdom to realize that with the enduring of hardship comes strength. The transition from youth to adulthood is a painful, destructive one, but it leaves you with the hardened shell necessary to keep going. Wisdom and strength come from the repetition of struggle; they can’t be faked, there are no shortcuts. Lisa thinks that the adults in her life are stupid and weak, but she doesn’t see that their hidden strength is the force that has been protecting her from reality. She walks around wearing short skirts, flaunting her newly acquired sexuality, but she still has to struggle with the fact that she becomes a scared child when actually faced with having sex. Teenage girls are given the potent power of female sexuality before they’re ever given the wisdom, empathy, or maturity to use it for anything other than destruction, and much of the conflict in this film comes from Lisa manipulating or turning a blind eye to the effect she has on people.
She’s a dangerous character who is nerve racking to watch operate. You know that her callousness and arrogance is going to ruin someone’s life, you just don’t know if it’s going to be hers or someone else’s. She sees the people around her as being shallow, self-centered, and trite, but she herself isn’t willing to do any of the important work necessary to avoid being those things, so she tries to co-opt the struggles of others. She takes credit that she hasn’t earned. She claims to have empathy for people that she has no understanding of. Generally, she’s an insufferable, entitled, melodramatic little bitch; but it’s fascinating to watch her work through all the issues that make her that way. Never have I been so invested in the life of a movie protagonist that I didn’t at all like. What Lonergan has managed to craft here is truly unique, and I haven’t even scratched the surface.
All I’ve done so far is ramble aimlessly about this one character, spitting out the thousand thoughts and emotional reactions I have about this film as they swirl around in my head. But I think that’s basically the only way to deal with the experience of seeing Margaret. I’ve barely even mentioned the setting, the way everything happening here is colored by and happening in the middle of a broken New York that’s still traumatized and grieving. Or the way this movie explores what it means to choose a creative life in a world where there is so much suffering, and so much concrete work that needs to be done. Isn’t indulging in your own creative impulses the ultimate selfish, egoist act? But if no one ever indulged their creative impulses wouldn’t we live in a bleak world bereft of art and culture? Is there any way to ever truly be authentic and a person of worth?
Famously, Margaret was shot back in 2005, and has sat on the shelf for many years due to a couple issues; probably the foremost being that the original cut was somewhere around four hours long. This cut comes in at around two and a half hours, and it admittedly feels like a bit of a mess. Like that four hour film was chopped up and half of the pieces were smashed together to haphazardly create a half-movie that doesn’t quite work. But that messiness works so well with the thematics of the story that it actually kind of does work. What’s here might be slightly formless, but it’s far too powerful and it affected me far too greatly for me to call it a failure. That it has led to me writing such a rambling, structureless review is just a testament to what a kick in the ass watching it is.
Margaret is a one of a kind experience, and I don’t know if I would want to see a version of it that was more polished, more focused. In the same way that many people still hate the shiny, corporate renovations done to Times Square, or the way that locals fight so hard to make sure that condos and mini-malls don’t move in and ruin the gross authenticity of Coney Island, I want Margaret to be a wandering, exploratory piece of art. I want it to have too many great performances to name, and too many layered ideas to address. I love that it’s got me word vomiting a reaction at four in the morning. This movie is an experience that I think everyone should make the effort to take in. Just pack a lunch, because it’s very long, and so far it’s been very hard to track down. You might have to do some traveling to get this experience. But isn’t that true of everything that’s worthwhile and real?
