There’s a certain segment of the filmgoing audience who rail against any indie film that could be called “hipster,” or “quirky,” or any other word that might be hurled at a story that’s made by an artistic young person, about artistic young people, and for artistic young people. A lot of times these audience members are robbing themselves of the experience of enjoying quality work, just because they have an inherent aversion to movies that have a certain sensibility, or a certain aesthetic. Anyone who falls into this camp, anyone who’s ever complained about a movie being for “hipster douches,” they should avoid Take This Waltz at all costs. They’re going to completely hate it... and this time they might even be angry for good reason. The crafting of the film is really well done, but it seems like it’s purposefully trying to push some people’s buttons. Take This Waltz doesn’t just wear its quirky, Brooklyn-by-way-of-Toronto bred heart on its sleeve; it also takes its sleeve and rubs it in your face.
All of the characters here have artistic or off-the-beaten-path jobs that wouldn’t pay much in the real world, but they all live in roomy, expertly decorated abodes. Their story is presented to us via soft, natural light-lit photography. The first scene involves baking, there’s closeups on feet... basically Take This Waltz is bait for every art school girl you’ve ever known. Michelle Williams stars as Margot, a manic free spirit who’s married to a cuddly recipe book writer (Seth Rogen), but who’s caught the eye of the lithe and handsome fellow who lives across the street (Luke Kirby). Much of the film concerns itself with their will-they-won’t-they pseudo romance, and Margot’s wrestling with the inherent conflict that exists between the commitments of marriage and the allure of new passion. If that sounds interesting to you, at times it is. But other times it becomes tedious because the characters that writer/director Sarah Polley has created are generally boring, and often annoying.
For the majority of the time various combinations of this love triangle share the screen, someone is being tickled, they’re blowing in each other’s faces, or they’re holding their open mouths up to each other’s eyes. It’s behavior that I suppose is supposed to be cute and show us that all of these kids are so young, fun, and in love; but the antics are so incessant that I was left with the impression that they must be touched in the heads, if only slightly. The characters of Take This Waltz don’t act like humans so much as they act the way fourteen-year-old girls wish humans would act. I kept waiting for Williams to pull out a notebook and write “Mrs. Margot Hipsterguy” over and over again on the cover.
And on the subject of Williams—she’s an actress that I have a great admiration for. Though she worked for quite a while before I became hip to her skills, in the last five years or so she has proven to me that she’s one of the most skilled and authentic faces in young Hollywood. But what I generally respond to in her performances is her subtlety. She underplays everything, going for organic and natural over dramatic and showy. All of the characters she plays feel like real people, and you can easily empathize with their plights. But here Williams is playing a character that isn’t so stoic. Margot is spastic and silly, and she reacts to everything that comes her way with a naval-gazing and melodramatic approach that really stretches what Williams is capable of as a performer. Don’t get me wrong, Williams doesn’t do a bad job with the character. I believed her as Margot every second she was on screen. It just made me a bit uncomfortable to see her basically resorting to mime schtick in order to bring this ridiculous character to life. It was interesting to watch her playing slightly unhinged, but not really interesting in a good way. I spent the whole movie wishing that she could slip back into the skin of someone who I found relatable.
Kirby struck me as being something of a black hole as the romantic interloper, Daniel. I never really had any reaction to what he did with the character—good or bad—even though he was given a couple scenes where quite a bit was asked of him. He was kind of just there. Part of my problem with his performance can probably be chalked up to the fact the Polley gives her characters so many mouthfuls of wordy, crafted, unnatural dialogue to speak throughout this film that I can’t think of many actors who could do anything with her preposterous monologues that wouldn’t turn out completely offensive. There’s one scene at a bar where Kirby’s character verbally seduces Margot by telling her all of the things that he would like to do to her that involved maybe the most overwritten dialogue I’ve ever heard in my life; but instead of keeling over and puking during it, I kind of just got bored and tuned out. Perhaps it’s an indication of some great skill on Kirby’s part that I was able to ignore his performance rather than actively be annoyed by it. Or perhaps he’s just milquetoast. I’ll have to see more of his work to decide.
Despite the fact—or perhaps because of the fact—that he gets the least amount of dialogue of all the main characters, Seth Rogen gives my favorite performance of this film. Whereas Williams is usually the actress who impresses me with her authenticity, this time around it’s Rogen who crafts a character that feels completely real. Sure, the character of Lou sees him coasting on his already firmly established persona; but there’s something to be said for an actor who can just naturally live in a moment and make you forget that you’re watching a make believe story. And toward the end of a film, when we get a scene where an argument is presented to us by just giving us his dialogue and reactions, and cutting everything she does out—he’s given a platform to impress, and he takes the ball and runs with it. You know, as far as a stoner comedian can run.
Sarah Silverman shows up in a supporting role that’s been getting some hype since this film played the festival circuit. Her character is Rogen’s sister, Williams’ confidant, and a struggling alcoholic. She doesn’t really get enough screen time to truly produce anything all that memorable, but she definitely does good with the scraps that she’s thrown. I wouldn’t say that this role proves that she will break free from her stand-up roots and become a respected dramatic actress, but it definitely proves that she deserves further opportunities to show us what she’s capable of. She even gets a big speech at the end that may be my favorite moment in the film.
But it’s a moment that largely gets drowned out by other, ridiculous moments that left a bad taste in my mouth. Without giving too much away, the scene where Margot and Daniel’s flirtation finally results in a physical encounter was absolutely ridiculous. What at first feels like it’s going to be the fade to black end of the film proves to actually be the beginning of a montage sequence that ushers in the film’s third act. In addition to the gradual collection of new furniture in what must have been a ridiculously expensive loft space, the sequence also features graphic, gratuitous sexual acts, including several three-ways that seem to come out of nowhere and left me at a loss as to what they added to the film.
Also there’s a shower sequence earlier in the film that features lengthy full-frontal nudity, not just from Williams and Silverman, but also from the army of hefty and aged ladies that make up their water aerobics class. Once again, the scene adds absolutely nothing to the film and it presents us with dialogue that could have easily taken place in any other setting, or which could have been shot with less revealing, shoulder-up closeups. There seems to be a current trend in indie filmmaking of actors and filmmakers proving how “brave” and “daring” they are by giving us graphic depictions of less than flattering female nudity, and I’ve already grown tired of it; nearly as tired as I was of the trend of comedies using male full-frontal nudity as an easy gag. Even gratuitous female nudity in the traditional sense is less gratuitous than this sort of nudity, because it at least exists to titillate the audience. This sort of nudity is all about the filmmakers and the performers. It’s a display meant to show us how evolved and progressive they are, with no concern given to what’s appropriate for the material they’re working with. Thank you for the condescending lesson that real people don’t look perfect naked, what would I have ever done without your wisdom?
Which I guess cuts to the heart of my reaction to this film. It’s maybe as uneven a watch as I’ve ever encountered. There were moments I hated, moments I really liked, characters who annoyed me to no end, and characters who I found kind of adorable. I think, for most people, Take This Waltz is going to be a love it or hate it affair, depending on how strongly they respond to twee sensibilities. But, for me, the love and the hate was coming with relatively even frequency; so I’ll give this one a rating somewhere in the middle.
