Margaret (I) (2011) User Reviews (149)

Sprawling Cassavettes Like Tale Of Anguished Young Woman's Guilt

[mbs · 6/10 · 20 January 2012]

The film is just over two and a half hours long and while it doesn't fly on by--it doesn't slowly crawl on by either. There are a lot of scenes that flow really really nicely into other scenes that might not have to do with the main plot line but seem to belong in the movie all the same. I can kind of see why the writer/director had trouble trimming it even at two and a half hours, its hard to tell where or what to trim since the main plot line of the movie isn't really the point so much as all the establishing things that contribute to Lisa's mood and state of mind as the movie progresses. (i think) If you're reading this you probably already know the main plot line--teenage girl Lisa causes massive bus accident resulting in a single death, and spends the rest of the movie both breaking down emotionally and trying to right what she feels she did wrong. (the accident is really, really not entirely her fault, but she feels enormous guilt just the same as she should) Anna Paquin gives an incredible performance here--i don't just mean that Paguin's performance is really emotional (which it is)--or that she feels like a real life teenager here (so confident in her rightness, so prone to outbursts when her rightness isn't so right) i mean that Paquin's performance really, pretty much completely single-handedly holds this entire jumble together into one coherent narrative--and for that she's almost like Kenneth Lonnigran's equivalent to Ben Gazzara here. We follow her as she runs into all sorts of people, and we follow her thru all of her mood swings and somewhat pointless arguments that she picks with some of these people, and completely well reasoned arguments that she picks with others...she's the kind of well intentioned but guilt racked protaginist you would expect to find in a novel or a play, or maybe a really good ongoing TV series--but definitely not a film with a definitive arc which is what makes her character that much more surprising.

The film really did call to mind some of John Cassavettes' films in both its rambling yet always moving forward (but never exactly straight forward) narrative and the many, many set pieces consisting of minute characters just talking....not to mention all the natrualistic scenes of Lisa just hanging out in her element. (meaning in school, with friends, arguing with her mom, etc) Movie is very very dialog heavy and yet somehow it never comes across as trying to strong-arm you into a specific point of view, at least until the last half hour or so--as its main character eventually and forcefully takes one on of her own.

This is a movie that for all of its strengths has plenty of weaknesses in it as well. For one thing I'm not sure what the heck Jean Reno is doing here exactly. I'm only slightly less curious about what the heck Matt Damon is doing here also. (was he supposed to be Lisa's moral compass? because his character doesn't really make any sense really. If there's one character who seems like he should have had more screen time it would have to be him) i'm not enitrely sure why we keep cutting back to Matthew Broderick who outside the scenes of him moderating English class debates (?!?!) doesn't seem to have much of a character to play. i'm not entirely sure the ending justified the extreme buildup--i'm also not sure how realistic that ending decision actually is either, but i'll let that go just because the movie had to have an ending. Even tho I enjoyed the constant cutting back to Lisa's mom's storyline (J Smith Cameron is pretty good here too i should point out)--i'm not even sure all of that was necessary to tell Lisa's story so thoroughly--even if the relationship between the mom and the daughter i think is supposed to be the backbone of the movie...and yet with all of these questionable elements just kind of thrown on in there one on top of the other, (like they're all so tightly wound together that it would be hard to pick one off without feeling like something was missing i should add)--- the movie does remain really quite watchable right up until the end--anchored very nicely by the excellent work of Anna Paquin so really that's a feat just by itself i think. This is a film that will be overrated by some, and too easily dismissed by many others...yet this definitely is a challenging film and one that i think should make a pretty good civics lesson to some high school/college students in the years ahead--provided schools are still teaching civics in the years ahead.

Paquin is astonishing, the whole scenario portrayed with unattractive grit. Great!

[secondtake · 8/10 · 26 September 2012]

Margaret (2011)

A terrific, evolving, and in-obvious story line mixed with a lead performance by Anna Paquin to die for makes "Margaret" fabulous. See it for her performance alone.

If you think this is a new movie you'll notice some famous actors who look rather young--Matt Damon in particular in his role as a likable high school teacher. That's because it was filmed in 2005 (and got held up in post-production). Even so it doesn't feel dated. The main themes hold up really well, and are told with unusually frank terms. Many people really are just greedy and selfish at heart.

The key event happens early on and in a way can't even be mentioned here. But it's safe to say that Paquin, who's character is called Lisa Cohen, at first takes a false stance in a moment of crisis and compassion. But the truth of the matter eats at her, and against the rising tide of people who prefer the lie she becomes increasingly principled. In the end it is almost everyone who is morally corrupt, even in his own way her teacher.

There is one lurking problem to the movie that really hurt it. One is the way the initial crisis is filmed (with Mark Ruffalo as a bus driver). It is exaggerated and makes the circumstances leading to tragedy unlikely just when the rest of the movie depends on likelihood. Since this is the lynchpin of everyone's reactions later on, it matters rather too much to ignore.

But the rest of it, from the main plot and Paquin to the various sub-plots including a romantic affair her mother has and some political conflicts about Arab-Israeli relations and the 9/11 events, is all really sharply delineated and well acted. And it's written with a good ear for dialog. It simply makes sense. The fact that there is no silver lining here, and that people are shown so obviously ugly below the surface, is harder to do than you might think. All admirable stuff.

A case study of sociopaths

[howard.schumann · 6/10 · 17 December 2011]

If Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret, his first film since You Can Count on Me, establishes anything it is that unless we can acknowledge responsibility and forgive ourselves for any real or perceived wrongdoing, we are caught in an endless cycle of denial and recrimination, potentially causing great damage to ourselves and others by internalizing our guilt. The title is derived not from a character in the movie but from the poem Spring and Fall: To a Young Child, by Gerard Manly Hopkins which is read in class by English teacher John (Matthew Broderick). It is a poem addressed to a child named Margaret that seeks to comfort her cries "over the lovely golden leaves of the autumn forest, all fallen to the ground." If you think Matt Damon looks thin and others have gotten younger, it's only because the film was completed in 2005 but held up for six years in legal battles over its length, which was finally cut by one-half hour. Margaret centers on Lisa (Anna Paquin), a bright but self-absorbed teenage student at a New York private school. She is grieving after a bus accident she witnessed that caused the death of a pedestrian (Allison Janney). It was an accident that was mainly caused by her distracting the driver (Mark Ruffalo) to try and ask him about his cowboy hat, a distraction that caused him to run a red light.

Beating herself up for giving a false statement to the police because she didn't want to get the bus driver fired, Lisa takes out her anger on those around her. One of her easy targets is her mother Joan (J. Smith-Cameron), a stage actress who is already nervous about a new play she is starring in and a new boyfriend Ramon (Jean Reno). Growing more shrill each day, Lisa is a disaster waiting to happen and her school classmates and her teachers are not spared from her acrimony, especially Mr. Aaron (Matt Damon) who is teased into a compromising situation.

Her behavior becomes increasingly inappropriate as she turns to drugs and sex with an experienced school friend (Kieran Culkin), but these provide no escape from her trauma. Eventually she takes a step in the right direction by contacting Emily (Jeanne Berlin), a close friend of the deceased, the bus driver, and the police detective to amend her original statement; however, it does not seem to help her anguish. The plot lurches in different directions with lawsuits, trips to the opera, and increasingly hostile relationships between the main protagonists, and the film becomes more unpleasant and histrionic as it labors towards its conclusion.

There are some excellent scenes, however, in Margaret and the recital of several poems, a passage from Shakespeare, and scenes from the operas Norma and Tales of Hoffman, pays tribute to the city and culture of New York. One of the best scenes is one in which a highly intelligent student challenges the teacher's interpretation of a passage from Shakespeare, only to be met with a brush off and a reference to the "scholarly consensus," a moment very relevant to debates of the present day. Unfortunately, there are few such moments or likable characters in Margaret, and when Lisa, negating her awakening of conscience, takes out her frustration against the bus driver, the film becomes more of a case study of sociopaths than a family drama. Ultimately, Margaret should have remained on the shelf.

great movie

[jamesdamnbrown · 20 February 2012]

Margaret is a well written coming of age drama, but the protagonist is not a sympathetic character, which is going to alienate a lot of the audience right off the bat. The girl behind me as I left the theater didn't like it, telling her friend, "I just couldn't stand Anna Paquin's character." The screenplay is deft at shorthanding idiosyncratic, complicated personalities with naturalistic dialogue. It also helps that every role in the film, including almost every minor part, is cast with a top notch actor. But for all the big Hollywood names, my props go to J. Smith-Cameron for a theater-grade performance scaled down to fit the intimacy of a close up shot. The movie explores the milieu of affluent teenagers attending an upscale school in New York City, and one of the other reviewers here is right in saying it resembles a French film in that it takes an mature approach to depicting adolescents, showing them as smart, complicated, sexual, uncertain. Most mainstream reviewers seem puzzled as to what they should think about it. I think it's over their heads, the elliptical, dialogue heavy, character driven narrative style, as well as the lack of an easy, simple take-away moral, seems to have befuddled them. Maybe we should rope in some theater critics' opinions instead.

Nice emotional movie but little too long...

[saadgkhan · 7/10 · 16 August 2012]

Margaret – CATCH IT (B+) Margaret is very interesting movie about a teenage girl partially involved in woman death in a brutal accident. The movie deals with how she is wants the bus driver to at least accept his mistake too and have some remorse or gilt. The movie takes to her journey how she tries to deal with her conscious. She is now torn apart with frustration and begins to emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and most of all, herself. Anna Paquin's performance as Margaret is terrific. She literally lived the role. From start to finish you won't be able to take your eyes off her, she may now always be remembered as Sookie Stackhouse but here she shows how incredible emotional range she has as an artist. Alison Janney is her death sequence was amazing. It maybe was a 5mintse scene but she sold her death to us and we can now imagine why Lisa was so heartbroken because of her death. J.Smith-Cameron is superb as Lisa's mom. Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon, John Gallager JR, Kieran Culkin, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jene Rene and Matthew Broderick did a decent job in their respective small yet pivotal roles. In the end Margaret is a nice movie and only flaw it has is its incredibly long without any reason. The movie could have been easily cut into hour and half by eliminating extra scenes or views of New York City.

'Margaret, are you grieving?...It is Margaret you mourn for.' Gerald Manley Hopkins

[gradyharp · 10/10 · 12 July 2012]

MARGARET is and has been a troubled movie - sophisticated examination of one girl's post- traumatic transformation as part of a larger point about how one's notion of importance is dwarfed by the larger worldview. Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan and shot in 2005 as a three-hour film, the movie has remained on the shelves since its completion in 2007 over legal problems and finally is available for viewing in a 150-minute version. Though it has flaws it contains some of the most sophisticated dialogue and philosophical points about where we are in our society today that the editing glitches become secondary background noise in a compelling film. The title (no one in the film is named Margaret) references the Gerald Manley Hopkins poem 'Spring and Fall: to a young child' which is quoted at the top of this review.

MARGARET focuses on a 17-year-old New York City high-school student Lisa (Anna Paquin) who feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in a traffic accident that has claimed a woman's life, Monica (Allison Janney): Lisa was chasing a bus whose driver Maretti (Mark Ruffalo) ran a red light because of Lisa's distraction trying to discover where the Maretti bought his cowboy hat. Monica dies in Lisa's arms while asking for her daughter also named Lisa (we later learn Monica's daughter died at age 12 from leukemia). Lisa at first feels sorry for Maretti, thinking that if she tells the truth Maretti will loose his job and his family support. Lisa's actress mother Joan (J. Smith-Cameron) encourages her to not give accurate testimony to the police, a decision Lisa follows and spends the rest of the film regretting, and in making attempts to set things right she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course against the realities and compromises of the adult world.

The world that Lisa occupies includes teachers - played by Matt Damon (who crosses a forbidden line when Lisa seeks his advice as the only truly adult man she knows, Matthew Broderick whose class discussions over literature are brittle and acerbic and deeply disturbing - her introduction to adolescent needs and physical incidents at the hands of John Gallagher, Jr. (now of The Newsroom fame), Paul (Kieran Culkin) - her relationship with her needy single mother Joan whose newly dating Ramon (Jean Reno), her contact with the deceased's friend Emily (Jeannie Berlin - brilliant), and the deceased's only family - all in an attempt to somehow set things right but Lisa admitting that she is as responsible for Monica's death as is Maretti. But the world outside can't cope with anything but financial compensation as the resolution to Lisa's angst.

There are many other characters brought to life by some VERY fine actors and the stunning musical score by Nico Muhly includes moments at the Metropolitan Opera where we actually get to see and hear Christine Goerke as Bellini's Norma singing 'Casta Diva' and Renée Fleming and Susan Graham singing the Barcarolle from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman, allowing the opening and closing of the film to be accompanied by a quiet guitar piece, as well as proving Muhly's very highly accomplished music to underscore the moods of the film. The cinematography by Ryszard Lenczewski underlines the tension - form the imagery of slow motion crowd movement in New York during the opening sequences to the stabilization of important encounters between the characters. A lot is said and screamed and the level of communication and actions by Anna Paquin's Lisa alienate the audience at times, but the film makes some very solid statements about how we are acidly interacting or not connecting in our current state of society. That deserves attention. The film requires a lot form the audience, but in this viewer's mind it is well worth the time.

Grady Harp

Very detailed

[phulla · 7/10 · 16 June 2021]

If the arty long drawn out unnecessary cut scenes were removed this could have made hundred minutes, because the central character played by Paquin was the detail in this film which was delivered well.

There seemed to be a complexity to Lisa even before the accident but it became more evident during the accident and only further emerged during the course of the film. It was good to see the main theme of the film from Lisa's perspective as well as witnessing her own teenage angsts.

It may have been a complicated story but it was delivered simply and very well.

The usual quality from Damon, Broderick, Ruffalo and Reno, but nice to see a movie not centered around these very strong male actors.

Makes You Wish that the Bus Hit You

[ligonlaw · 1/10 · 8 January 2012]

With the A-list cast, it is incredible that no one noticed that this film makes very little sense.

There is so much wrong with it, it is hard to begin. Scenes run on and on without advancing the story. Scenes are cut without reason. This film is badly in need of editing. Margaret is a very long movie with very little story to tell.

The story wanders everywhere. It is essentially a story about a 17-year- old woman, Lisa Cohen, who is partly responsible for the death of a pedestrian in New York City. The heroine, played by Anna Paquin, is annoying from the beginning when she is caught cheating on her math exam by her teacher, played by Matt Damon. He indulges her belief that she is entitled to do so.

Later that day she distracts a bus driver, played by Mark Ruffalo, in order to find out where he bought his cowboy hat. Instead of watching where he is going, the driver kills a woman in the crosswalk. The woman dies in Lisa's arms. She lies to the investigating officer at the scene and reports that the bus had the green light. She later experiences the discomfort of guilt.

The rest of the film involved this young woman making a nuisance of herself to pretty much everyone she meets. She changes her story. She wants to meet the family of everyone involved in the tragic death. She wants the bus driver fired. She wants to move to California to live with her father. She has sex for the first time without really knowing her partner. She tries to have sex with her teacher at school. She argues with everyone.

Jean Reno adds contrast to the ensemble. He plays a nice, interesting man who injects a little reason and depth to the story, so you know he has to die unexpectedly so that there are no agreeable people left in story.

The script is about unhappy, ethically-challenged, unpleasant people bickering about morality, about Israel and Palestine, about whatever, and then there is psychobabble. These people go after each other at the slightest provocation.

At some point, a civil lawyer is retained. The lawsuit makes no sense. The involvement of the heroine, who was partly responsible for the death, in every aspect of the suit goes beyond incredible. The beneficiaries of the suit lie about how much they liked the dead woman. The lawyer encourages this. There are speeches about morality made by people aren't very moral.

It is a long, long movie that makes you wish you were hit by the bus instead.

A tragic accident sends one New York City teenager into the throws of a moral dilemma which serves as a catalyst for her own transformation

[abneuman · 10/10 · 27 July 2006]

A truly heart wrenching story, "Margaret" reiterates Kenneth Lonergan's gifts for dialogue, story, and his ability to treat the most dramatic themes with artful humor, awareness and perception. The acting is exceptional; even relatively small parts, (played by actors such as Matthew Broderick, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, and Allison Janey) showcase both the actors' own remarkable abilities as well as Lonergan's attention to detail. It is Matthew Broderick's character who is the only one to utter the movie's title as he recites a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. J. Smith Cameron and Anna Paquin, who play mother and daughter, both deliver fierce performances which form the relationship that serves as the backbone of the film. Taking on issues from abortion, divorce, and death to the inherent isolation of being human, the movie has a life and humor to it which cannot be brought down by the weightiness of these issues.

Paquin is so unlikeable eventually the film becomes so

[zetes · 7/10 · 10 February 2013]

Shot back in 2005, after a long history of editing problems, this film finally got released in 2011, and debuted on DVD in 2012, with an extended director's cut (I guess) included. Unfortunately, I accidentally watched the shorter (still two and a half hour) version. I'm not sure I'd want to sit through another half hour of this. It's a good film, at its heart. The story is very good, anyway. My big problem with it is that the central character, played by Anna Paquin, is such an unlikeable, pretentious little snot I eventually just stopped caring about what was going on. It's a totally realistic depiction of a teenager, but it reminds me how much I hate teenagers, or at least teenagers like her. Frankly, most of the rest of the characters are equally as obnoxious. I was extremely glad to see Jeannie Berlin call Paquin out on her bullcrap, but she's just as detestable. I found it hilarious that Paquin mistakenly calls her "strident," which she thinks means "pig-headed" or something but which actually means "shrill." The whole film is honestly pretty shrill. The story revolves around Paquin causing a bus accident. At first, she lies about it, then later she feels bad about it and tries to recant her statement.

Irritating teen, irritating adults, irritating movie

[[e-mail] · 1/10 · 14 February 2021]

Attention-seeking teen with self-involved parents causes pain for everyone she imposes herself on. Every character has been directed to be as obnoxious as they can be and they succeed. I spend my days trying to avoid people like this so seeing this film was not illuminating and certainly not entertaining.

Hope opera

[rooee · 9/10 · 21 December 2011]

On the day of its cinema release, Kenneth Lonergan's long-gestating drama was the most successful film in the UK. Problem was, it only opened on one screen. The story of Margaret's production is likely a fascinating story in itself, not least because of Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker's input into the final edit, which was presumably a return favour for Lonergan's work on the screenplay for Gangs of New York. But I'll focus on the fascinating story that Lonergan has told with this film.

Ostensibly the tale centres on a New York schoolgirl named Lisa (Anna Paquin, defining her young adulthood just as she defined herself in childhood with The Piano), who inadvertently causes a fatal road accident. What follows is the emotional aftermath, fought outwardly with her mother, as a moral and ethical war wages within her hormone-ravaged body.

The performances are excellent throughout, particularly Paquin and J. Smith-Cameron as the daughter and mother caught in gravitational flux. Jean Reno gives fine support as the sad-sack Ramon, while Matthew Broderick delivers the poem (by Gerard Manley Hopkins) that provides the film's title, while suggesting the entire life of his character by the way he eats a sandwich. It's that kind of film.

I recently wrote a review of Winter's Bone, which I described as an anti-youth movie. Margaret could be a companion piece in this regard, cautioning against the bright-eyed naivety of youthful independence, and promoting the importance of family. Like Winter's Ree, Lisa is a lost soul; unlike Ree, Lisa is not someone we admire. But she is always in focus; Lonergan expects not for us to like her, only to understand her. In maintaining this focus, Lonergan himself achieves the admirable: weaving a narrative whose minute details and labyrinthine arguments mirror the broader existential vista against which they are dwarfed.

Margaret goes deeper than Winter's Bone, delivering something pleasingly unexpected: a kind of Sartrean modern fable about the isolating nature of subjectivity. Like her actor mother on the stage, and like us all in our semi-waking lives, Lisa is the main player in her great opera. She performs the social functions that enable her to cling to a sense of belongingness, but something gnaws at her soul. And when, after the accident, she seeks some kind of meaning, she is met at once by indifference, before being seduced by those very institutions that make indifference normal. Nothing in the material world satisfies Lisa; nothing can match her aspirations. The suggestion here, I feel, is that our despair emerges from the disparity between that which we hope for and that which reality can deliver.

No wonder it took so long to find its way to a single UK screen: a three-hour existentialist play is a tough sell. Ten years after the towers sank to Ground Zero, Margaret joins There Will Be Blood, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, and (for some) Zodiac in the pantheon of modern classics that map the American psyche in the post-9/11 world.

The accident

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 18 August 2012]

After his directorial debut in "You Can Count on Me", the immensely talented Kenneth Lonergan's new film was expected eagerly. The director, who has contributed to the theater with plays of the caliber of "This is Our Youth", "Lobby Hero", "The Waverly Gallery", and others seen in the New York stage. Now, after a long period in the shelves, his "Margaret" was released last year. Not having seen it when it was commercially released, we were given the DVD version as a present. "Margaret" had problems, yet the final version with a running time of 150 minutes, seems much longer the way it unfolds on the screen.

The basic premise is a careless young woman, Lisa, whose actions distract a bus driver in such a way, he provokes a fatal accident in which one innocent woman on her way home from shopping, is hit by the vehicle right in front of her eyes. Running to help the victim, Lisa experiences death as the woman dies in her arms. Lisa is distraught by what she witnessed, contributing to her own state of turmoil. She is a girl of privilege living in Manhattan with her divorced mother and young brother. She attends a good school, and by all reasons, should have been a happy girl until this tragedy alters her life and her perception of it.

At heart, there are a lot of thoughts behind Mr. Lonergan's screenplay. First and foremost is Lisa's own awakening to life after seeing the older woman die and not reporting to the police what really caused the accident. In her quest of righting a wrong, Lisa goes after the victim's only living relative who could not have cared more about what happened in New York. With the help of the dead woman's best friend, Lisa decides to continue fighting for what she feels was wrong. As a lawyer is brought to the fight the case, money from the bus company is mentioned, thus bringing to the picture the cousin and her family in Arizona who did not care about the accident, but now with the promise of riches, she loved and cared deeply for her late cousin.

There is also a problem in the relationship of Lisa and her actress mom. Lisa is critical of a mother she perceives as shallow. Lisa was ambivalent about her sexual life, but suddenly she decides to lose her virginity with a boy who decides to be the one doing the honor as a badge of merit. Not content with that Lisa hits on a teacher who should have known better, but goes against his better judgment to bed his student.

The acting, for the most part, is first rate. Anna Paquin is splendid as Lisa. We have seen Ms. Paquin in the New York stage and she keeps getting better and better all the time. Her bratty Lisa transforms herself in a young woman with a cause in her heart. J. Smith-Cameron, who is Mrs. Lonergan in real life, has been doing outstanding work in whatever play, she is asked to perform. As Lisa's mother, she is perfect in her approach. There are small appearances of people like Matt Damon, Matthew Broderick, Jeannie Berlin, Allison Janney, Kieran Culkin, among others. Mark Ruffalo, who shined in Mr. Lonergan's debut film, has nothing to do in this one. A miscast Jean Reno comes out as a racist and a bigot.

One can imagine that given the right atmosphere Kenneth Lonergan would have come out with a winning film. "Margaret" has brilliant moments, as well as others that detract from being a perfect film.

Protect Your Snout

[Cinnyaste · 3/10 · 1 July 2012]

Note: This review reflects the 149 minute version.

A privileged New York high school junior literally shepherds a dying woman to the other side after she's hit by a bus. The driver, distracted by the junior, Lisa (Paquin), runs a red light and flattens the woman. "Margaret" is Lisa's reconciliation of a youthful outlook to one more adult. It's a premise sounding far more promising than the result.

The title derives from the Hopkins' poem, "Spring and Fall" (1880)

"To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving? / Leaves, like the things of man, you / With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? / Ah! as the heart grows older / It will come to such sights colder. . ."

A talented filmmaker, Mr. Lonergan crafted "You Can Count On Me," a sharply observed tale of two siblings in crisis. He also wrote the entertaining yet trivial "Analyze This," "Analyze That," and the disappointing "Gangs of New York." "Margaret" is an attempt to thumb his nose at those trivialities. Instead, he rubs intellectual snobbery and pretense into the audience's nose; the attempt at drawing parallels between Lisa's quest and world politics arrives at the table still raw and is uncomfortably didactic.

Some reviewers crowed, "Masterpiece! Masterpiece!" ("The New York Times" printed a feature article about "Margaret.") A troubled history and abysmal box office are the counterpoints. While at times masterful and somewhat intriguing, "Margaret" is, at its gooey center, an overlong meander with a theme cobbed from a poem. One wonders what the 36 additional minutes in Lonergan's cut (for an astonishing, snoozy 185 minutes) add to this already plodding misfire.

The completion of this film has been the subject of a few lawsuits. The legal wrangling led to a film wrested from Lonergan's hands to be edited by Schoonmaker and Scorcese. Fear not, Masochists. The DVD features both cuts.

Wasted! Wasted! Wasted! Broderick, Damon, Reno, Ruffalo, Janney (particularly the wonderful Janney - the accident victim). The hapless characters could easily have been handled by lesser-knowns for the material is far too shallow for the combined star power. Adding insult, Lonergan wrote himself in as the divorced dad living on the left coast. His scenes are beyond expendable.

Paquin does fine, yet, at 24, she's long-in-the-tooth to be believable as a 17 year old (at first glance she appears passable as a college junior). There are fireworks between Lisa and her mother, an excellent J. Smith-Cameron. However, they become shrill and muddied through repetition.

This script was in process for many years (and exhibits the associated constipation).

There's an unspoken trust between filmmaker and audience. The expectation is the story has clarity and a through-line to reward we popcorn munchers in the dark. Mr. Lonergan broke the trust through reversal by expecting the audience to help him understand "Margaret." If this is where Lonergan is headed as a Director, authoring "Analyze The Other Thing" should be the next entry on his resume.

Situated agency

[tedg · 20 February 2015]

Okay, I've been through both edits of this now, after recommendations from several readers. I get what he is trying to do. I am writing as someone who prefers the Cannes edit of Brown bunny and who eagerly sat through 3 1/2 hours of The Falls.

I think this is a failure, a failure is the sense that the filmmaker had ambitions that may have been unachievable.

What he wanted, I think is to have two films merged. One that carried a narrative that mattered and conveyed transformation. And another that conveyed situation, and not just surroundings but an environment that collectively has agency of the same power. You have to see both edits to see this man's struggle; you can compress the first of these because we have all sorts of narrative enzymes in our digestive system. We can fill in things and often are better off with less.

It is also the case that you can make an environmental movie with scant narrative. Greenaway does it all the time. Ruiz. Kar-Wai Wong. And if you are willing to have a smaller, more engaged audience, this is achievable in 150 minutes. What Lonergan wanted to do was to have both and have each drive the other. Moreover, he placed himself and his wife as the contacts, a dual fulcrum between the two.

There are so many dynamics that are necessary to bind this, to make all the parts affect each other the way he designed that taking any one out ruins the structure. If you did not know his ambition, a viewer would hardly see anything wrong. The Paquin character is great, as are the surrounding actors. The city, the tone, the environment is as richly presented as the best Woody Allen Manhattan-anchored movie. But the environment does not have the coherent agency it needs to do what he clearly intended.

I think we have to have a much longer version than 3 hours to accomplish what he attempted. But gosh, the ambition is admirable and all the pieces I can see are amazingly promising. It is no wonder that first rate talent was eager to participate.

Not brilliant, certainly over-long, but full of surprises

[God-12 · 6/10 · 12 February 2013]

Not brilliant, and overlong, but a film that's full of surprises.

Who'd imagine a Hollywood film that has a serious role for Gerard Manley Hopkins? That could poke fun at the chap who wants to twist Shakespeare to his peculiar fundamentalism? That could have authority figures asserting that, yes, it would be censorship to stop somebody expressing horror at the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan? That has such an unlikeable, feral beast as its main character? That pokes fun, albeit gentle fun, at the peculiar brand of revenge known as 'justice' in Hollywood? That can portray opera as redeeming. One could go on.. that could have an adult objecting, coherently, to adolescent emoting - 'you are dealing with human beings, not characters in your personal opera' was, I thought, rather a good line.

The most annoying habit was repeatedly playing the theme from Tristan and Isolde, quite well, actually, in the foreground, but with people acting and talking over it. Maybe it was supposed to be some post-modernist message about ignoring beauty, or not paying attention, or... perhaps it was just a poor sound engineer.

It would be a much better film with an hour cut out of it, so I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe, though, if you've a very long flight it might be just the ticket to keep you engaged without needing to concentrate too much, with surprising little gems from time to time.

A masterclass in dialogue with wonderful acting

[RolyRoly · 9/10 · 30 July 2012]

The travails involved in getting this movie released at all are well enough known by now that the fact that it is a flawed masterpiece shouldn't come as a surprise. Above all, it is a masterclass in how to write dialogue. Virtually every character is given a credible and compelling voice, from the bus driver to the lawyer, from the mother's suitor to Lisa's "boyfriend". As the father of a daughter, now in her early 20's, I can say that Lisa Cohen's character is as realistic a portrayal of the insecurities and self-righteousness of female adolescence as I have seen. All aspiring screenwriters should be forced to watch this movie and then be given a 3-hour oral and written exam before being allowed to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard).

The acting is also superb. The feel is more of a stage play, an ensemble piece, than a film. Perhaps the fact that one of the characters - Lisa's mother - is a stage actress struggling to support her daughter is partially responsible. But you can tell that this team of seasoned actors relished the opportunity to stretch out with an intelligent well-written script and a supportive director.

The only flaw in Margaret has already been well expressed by others. The film does meander and, while I recognize that this is partly the point of the exercise, there are times at which you long for a more conventional, and taut, storyline. I would gladly have spent more time in the company of these well-drawn, articulate and interesting people. Maybe next time HBO wants to do a miniseries it will let Kenneth Lonergan loose on a story rather than subject us to another preachy, wordy effort from Aaron Sorkin.

Starts out well, but loses focus

[bandw · 6/10 · 28 October 2012]

Lisa (Anna Paquin) is a teenager in New York City who attends a private prep school. She distracts a city bus driver to the extent that he runs a red light and kills a pedestrian. The scenes leading up to and including that event are well filmed, with the accident itself presented in grisly detail. Lisa lies to the investigating detective saying that the light was green. Just why she lied is not clear--she says to protect the driver. After the accident the story follows Lisa as she tries to deal with her feelings of guilt over the matter. The effect on her is to transform her from being a typically insolent, precocious teen to being exceptionally petulant and annoying. Paquin does a good job of portraying smoldering disdain, an attitude that provokes most interactions she has with others to quickly escalate into major shouting matches. If you prefer to tolerate histrionic teenage angst in small doses, then you may have trouble with this movie.

There were some potentially good moments to be had in the exchanges among the students in Lisa's classrooms, particularly between Lisa and a Middle Eastern woman. But Lisa's intemperate verbal attacks abort any rational discussion, to the detriment of the class as well as the audience of this movie. The event in Lisa's English literature class that had the teacher read the Poem, "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins was also a missed opportunity. The poem is particularly relevant to the story (after all the title of the movie is taken from the woman mentioned in it), but after the reading there is no discussion that could have illuminated the poem's meaning and its fitness to Lisa's situation. When Lisa was called on to respond to the reading, I sympathized with her blank stare. It is unreasonable to expect someone to grasp the meaning of that obscure poem on a quick first reading, at least it was for me. For example, what is to be made of the first two lines, "Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?" The poem is worthy of study, if you care to look it up.

The talents of Matthew Broderick and Matt Damon are pretty much wasted in their minor roles as teachers.

As the movie moves along too many subplots develop, like Lisa's seduction of Damon (highly unbelievable), her mother's boyfriend dying of a heart attack, and the relationship between Lisa and her father in California. There is one fatal plot flaw. The accident occurred on a busy New York City intersection and after the accident there were at least a couple dozen people who quickly gathered around. Are we to believe that not one of those people witnessed the accident?

The movie seems to be trying to say something about post 9/11 America. At the risk of reading more into it than what was intended I could see the bus as symbolizing the US that was paying attention to frivolous distractions while ignoring red lights (remember the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" in the President's Daily Brief of Auguat, 2011) and driving into the Iraq war, killing many people and resulting in a protracted period of anguished coming to terms.

A more focused presentation could have made this a good movie.

Stressful cinema you can do without

[Greigx3 · 3/10 · 21 March 2012]

For me it was more of a stressful experience than sitting and enjoying a movie. The cast boasts Anna Paquin (of True Blood fame), Hollywood heavyweight Matt Damon, Jean Reno from Leon and Matthew Broderick. I've got a real soft spot for Broderick because of Election, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of my favourite films, but even the presence of the righteous dude couldn't redeem this film for me. Mark Ruffalo is a favourite of mine too (Shutter Island, The Kids Are Alright, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Ruffalo, Damon and Broderick are scarcely in the film though. It's really all about Lisa: a hormonal teenager who seeks to satisfy her insatiable desire for conflict and drama by pestering all of the people who were involved or affected by a horrific bus accident that she witnessed. Paquin gives a powerful and convincing performance throughout so you can't really blame her for the films failure. You can't simply blame the fact that the character is especially detestable either – we've seen anti-heroes and super villains time and time again in cinema, and they can be some of the most engrossing characters to watch. The film's problem is that it focuses entirely on this high-strung, volatile, bitchy adolescent as she goes about a mundane course of day-to-day life, seeking attention and rubbing people up the wrong way. There's no real point to all this. The conclusion resolves to say nothing more than "she's probably like this because of her age and she doesn't get along with her mum" or something. Margaret is nothing more than a character study of a stereotypically hostile, obnoxious teenager. There's no clear controlling idea, it wallows in ambiguity and the attempts to reference Shakespeare are laughably pretentious. It's too long, entirely stressful to sit through and has no real payoff at the end.

a fantastic movie and a sure bet Oscar for best picture and actress

[mporde · 10/10 · 27 January 2007]

This movie showcases Lonergan's genius for dialog and his gift for articulating the human predicament. The story, centered around a girl who witnesses a horrible accident (Anna Paquin), is an operatic tour de force. Paquin a and J. Smith Cameron (her mother in the film)\ are absolutely brilliant, and the supporting cast is so strong that this movie should sweep multiple Oscars. Lonergan's pacing and tone are well suited to what is both a heartrending and funny complex drama.The sweeping grandeur of New York City comes across more realistically, and beautifully, than it has in any other recent film. So much of what makes us human is articulated in the movie that everything is real, everything is believable, and one can't help but to be moved to tears, to laughter, and back again. Margaret is a perfect follow up to Lonergan's superb first film You Can Count on Me.

Had high hopes, but ...

[djm_98-1 · 6/10 · 8 August 2012]

This film was praised in a New York Times article about its tortured history. Thus, I had high hopes when I finally saw it on DVD. Not sure which version I saw - there are a few out there and that is part of the "tortured history" - but, it was long. Overly so. The movie starts well, with compelling visuals of New Yorkers and nicely framed shots. We meet Paquin's character, Lisa, and the film establishes some "pre- event"/baseline for her life. After the critical event, however, Lisa becomes increasingly histrionic. This is part of the plot. But, it gets annoying. So much so, that the crying,screaming,whining becomes not only predictable, but makes Lisa unlikable almost to the point I was wanting her to meet her end under an MTA bus. Rather than that conclusion we get an unsatisfying moment of seeming catharsis with her mother that only serves to underline Lisa's solipsistic nature rather than any real growth in character. Along the way, there are seeming out of nowhere plot twists and many loose ends that suggest a hacked/botched/chaotic editing session(s).

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

[olivier-431-887888 · 2/10 · 24 July 2012]

OK… I am not particularly proud of it, but I had such a boring experience watching this thing I actually created an account just to post this review.

This movie is awful. I just can't believe that anyone could have actually enjoyed it, and get something out of it.

It is one of the most boring, over-played, pompous movie I have ever seen. It is just a pathetically elongated drama who tries very very, very hard to be a metaphorical display of big obnoxious pseudo-intellectual themes, seasoned with an overdose of teenagers hormones and unhappiness. Death, suffering, guilt, absurdity of life, guilt, every big human unanswerable question thrown at the face of this unbearable brat who screams all the time instead of just go and sign for 20 years of therapy or shoot herself. Problem is, Shakespearian drama without the drama… is just a boring overrated portray of a troubled teen.

I suspect the intentions of the filmmakers were to make the viewers think "oooh poor thing, it must be hard to live after such a trauma; yes it is difficult to grow and make life-changing decisions, etc." instead, I just wanted the main character to throw herself under the next bus.

I waited desperately for something interesting to happen, for a twist that would make this whole nonsensical agitation more than a big waste of time… but no. If you are not 13 and right in the middle of "everything is so important I scream all the time and think I am gonna die if you dare contradict me, my life is so miserable you know…", you better pass on this one

A masterpiece!

[eddiefieg · 10/10 · 19 February 2012]

"Margaret" is an absolute masterpiece. It's thematically going for the tone of a grandiose opera, but in a modern day context, filtered through the emotions of a teenage girl in association with a tragedy. It expresses the emotional teenage mind-set like no other.

Every performance is astounding and every character it so compelling and fully-realized. I would compare it to the likes of "Requiem for a Dream," "Magnolia," "There Will Be Blood," "Synecdoche, New York," "The Tree of Life," and other movies that tell sprawling emotional melodramas that just hook you in and don't let you go. If you're into that kind of thing, this is for you.

There's no doubt in my mind that if this movie hadn't been tangled up in lawsuits years ago, it would have been a huge Oscar contender and Anna Paquin surely would be winning tons of awards for her performance. It's such a shame that a movie of this size and scope was overlooked.

Editing don'ts

[hosenoggin-17437 · 7/10 · 5 January 2019]

Hey there, I usually like to keep reviews positive, but also need to keep integrity of my professional opinion. So, her goes.... I found this movie to have great acting and characters. But this movie is a lesson on how not to edit. many bad cuts that made me think my streaming was interrupted, but playing back realized it was fine. Many scenes did not do anything for the story, such as some classroom scenes. This 150 minute movie could have got the story across edited to less than 100. About 2/3 the way in, there is a minute pan shot of New York that ends up panning up to the sky. Why???? Don't understand why this waste of a minute was left in the movie, as it did nothing for the story. I have a feeling I watched a web directors cut, and not a theatrical release. Thank god I watch on a comp player that allows 1.5 times play back so I actually did watch this in under 100.

Who wrote this mess?

[kisami777 · 1/10 · 24 October 2012]

I never known of a another movie that I've watched that I hated the female characters so much. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I can only guess that the writer wants females to come across as horrible, nagging, b's, while the guys are the easy going common sense individuals. There is no way I can see anyone giving this movie more than one star and even that's far reaching.

In addition, the movie doesn't even make sense. You have a girl running along the side of a bus repeatedly trying to get the bus drivers attention to the point where I thought she was going to run into a pole, and she then goes on a one man crusade to get him arrested for something she caused.