Review: Margaret

“It is blight man was born for, it is Margaret you mourn for.”

Margaret has been on my radar for a while, having come into it by way of its troubled production, originally shot in 2007, the film wasn't released until 2011 due to an editing disagreement between the studios who wanted a film coming in under 2 and a half hours and the director who felt that the film needed it's full three hours to tell itself properly. Many years and many lawsuits later the film was eventually to be trimmed down to 165 minutes by Martin Scorsese and his long time collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker but that went over-budget and eventually the studios were able to release their 150 minute version with director Kenneth Lonergan releasing his 3 hour version on DVD in 2012.

For the record this is a review for the 3 Hour Extended Cut, if I'm gonna watch a long and troubled movie I'm gonna watch it at its longest and most troublesome.

The film itself is gonna be hard to recommend, not because it's bad - it's pretty goddamn brilliant - but because of the way it tells its story, there's a real feeling of senselessness to the whole thing but in many ways it's one of the most lifelike and realistic films out there and hooks you on it's distressing and often unbelievable journey.

The film follows 17 year old Lisa Cohen, a student in Manhattan living with her single mother and her younger brother in small apartment. One day after class, Lisa tries to find a cowboy hat to wear to a horse-riding trip she'll be taking with her father later in the year when she sees bus driver Gerald Maretti wearing one. As she runs alongside his moving bus trying to get his attention she distracts him long enough for him to run a red light and hit Monica Patterson, a woman simply crossing the road who later dies in Lisa's arms.

Alarmed by the sudden and violent death in front of her, Lisa lies to the police about the red light and the true nature of the accident but when her conscience takes her to find Maretti in the hopes of a shared experience she realises that he's happy to put the incident behind him and forget that he killed a woman, disgusted by this Lisa takes it upon herself to see that Maretti is fired and starts a law battle with Emily, Monica's best friend, to see it through. However the closer she gets to Monica's life the more she sees what a troubled and disturbed woman she really was and the effect her death has on her family.

Strange as it sounds, the legal battle isn't the main story line, it's just part of the backbone, the real story is Lisa and how her life is changed by Monica's death, the whole film shows a slow descent into chaos for the young woman who suddenly takes a very pessimistic and often violent view of this post 9/11 world and tries to right herself along the way but finds herself failing to move passed the accident which she blames herself for. She loses her virginity to a classmate, she flirts with her Math teacher, she fights with her actress mother, she fights with her fellow students on topics such as religion, race and politics all surrounding the terrorist threat that has entered their lives and most of all she fights with herself about how she's really handling the guilt of causing someone's death and the connection she may or may not have had with her.

It's a very slow burning film but one that uses that it's advantage, Lisa's character and her slow twist into a sort of guilty madness is what drives the films and it's almost like she is the plot of the movie, all these little subplots and asides follow her story and we're watching her react to it all in several very surprising ways. It's a tough film to get into but if you give it the time and effort then it's worth sticking with.

The characters are many but like the film they're all in some way connected to Lisa and their reactions to her are what define them, a few smaller characters like her fellow students have differing opinions of her, for some she's a crappy selfish friend, to others she's a fun if confusing girl and to one girl she's a controversial pain in the ass that goes out of her way to defend her opinion even if everything she says is mindless bullshit - although to be fair both Lisa and the other girl have their right points but they're far too busy trying to yell over each other to see that. It's easy to see why Lisa is such a loner character due to how she reacts to the people she's suppose to be friends with.

Lisa's relationship with the men in her life is just as fractured, her English teacher John (played by Matthew Broderick in a small but well-meaning performance) can see a potential in her but can't get passed her dismissive outer shell. Her father is trying to maintain a civil relationship with her but struggles to do that over the phone and her Math teacher Aaron (Matt Damon in another small but important role) is trying to ignore her pretty heavy flirting and the fact that she is a rather striking young woman. Then of course there's Gerald played by Mark Ruffalo, while they're time together is short Ruffalo shows a man that is just looking to forget about the whole situation and move on which directly contradicts Lisa's guilty conscience and is what puts her at odds with him.

One of the few people outside her own family to spend any time with Lisa is Emily, a close friend of Monica's who decides to help Lisa in her court battle against Maretti. At first she's a kind and warming person who is happy to help Lisa because of the traumatic experience they've both been through but as they spend more time together Emily begins to see that Lisa is nothing more than a scared and lost little girl making a bigger deal out of this than is necessary. By the end of it all their relationship has turned sour and Emily has lost all care for what brought them together in the first place because Emily truly misses Monica and has been through so much with her old friend, from growing up together to the death of Monica's daughter and all Lisa did was spend two minutes with her as she died and acts like she always knew the woman Emily called her best friend.

Strange as it may seem for these character not to have their own storylines I think it works in the film's favour, by not having their stories go beyond Lisa's field of view it keeps the film incredible personal and allows for a more intimate focus, showing us how these people react to Lisa without giving us more than a fleeting glimpse into their lives from her viewpoint. It's an interesting technique, especially for a film this big, but it works.

The only other person in Lisa's life to get any storyline is her mother Joan played by J. Smith-Cameron. A moderately successful stage actress, Joan is trying to live the comfortable life of a single mother and a career woman but can't do both, her situation not helped by her daughter jumping down her throat at every little thing that comes out of her mouth. Joan isn't exactly a tough woman but she's trying her hardest to live her life and not just be that frumpy single mother blaming her children for everything. She wants to get out and live a life with her new boyfriend Ramon (Jean Reno in a pretentious but not wholly unlikeable role) but her constant bickering and arguments with Lisa puts a strain on her life that she'd rather not deal with.

And finally, the star of the show, Anna Paquin as Lisa Cohen and let me just say that having only seen Paquin in the X-Men movies, seeing her in this made me realise why she's an Oscar Winner, she is un-fucking-believably brilliant in this role, there are so many layers to Lisa's character and yet Paquin nails them all, creating one of the most interesting and difficult characters I've seen in a lot of years. Perhaps most surprising about Lisa's character is that at times she's very unlikeable, she's often quite selfish without realising it and her whole role in Monica's death may not even be as big as she thinks it is, she just throws herself into this court case for her own peace of mind. It might sound like she's a bitch but in actual fact she's a teenager, more than that she's a teenager that's gone through - to her mind - a traumatic event and is suffering emotionally from the outcome of it all so she's lost all sense of who she is and what she's suppose to do, often lashing out at people for no reason other than to invoke a reaction. Lisa is a very odd but very unique creation brought to life through Paquin's powerful journey on this emotional hell-ride, she's able to switch between flirty student to ice-cold bitch to emotional wreck on a dime and make it all feel the same part of this complex young woman and the life she's been forced into through guilt and a troubled redemption that may not be helping her at all. If there's absolutely any reason to see this film it's Paquin's performance which stands as one of the most underrated of the decade.

Director Kenneth Lonergan paints a deceptively simple picture that has far more going on that you first expect. There's several instances within the film which show the city of New York that's just as much in play as Lisa is, sometimes panning from a different set of random characters to Lisa or filming large sections of the city before cutting to wherever she is at the moment. In many ways this is as much a film about New York as it is about Lisa, her tale of guilt and redemption is just one of many that goes on in the city that never sleeps and in the grand scheme is a lot smaller than anyone initially realises. This theme of insignificance is brought up in many of Lisa's classes, her English class deals with Shakespeare and the apparent referential Gods that look upon humanity like ants and have no real plan for us making all action and her social studies (or possibly debating class due to how loud and violent it gets) often brings up economic, political and racial issues that lead to angry and impassioned arguments about the nature of terrorism, the definition of what a terrorist actually is and America's role in the war in Iraq, these scenes may feel like window dressing with no real connection to the story but they show the bigger world out there that Lisa is ultimately trying to ignore because of her own emotional distress at home.

There's a heavy feeling of realism to the film, not through grittiness or an overuse of browns and greys but in how simply complex it tells itself. the camera is used to capture this lifelike feeling and it does so in this very clever way, it mixes and matches a combination of long, drawn-out one-takes that slowly build through the city to find Lisa stuck in the middle of it all as well as short, quick cuts that only show the important parts of a difficult conversation. The mix is impressive because it always keeps our intrigue and never allows out attention to go dry but it also manages to show a very real slice of life, there are moments in life which feel slow and methodical, like time has slowed down and you're trapped in someone else's story and there are times that go by quickly because you want to move on as fast as you can and emotionally skip all the bits that you don't want to remember anymore. Much like the rest of the film it's a strange but highly effective style.

That realism comes part and parcel with Lonergan's refusal to let the audience pick a side in this whole battle, you can never really decide clearly what's going on in Lisa's head, is she truly grieving for the loss of this strange woman she never truly met or is her emotionally damaged mind feeling the guilt of responsibility? Is Lisa a sullen teenager with a typically violent attitude towards her mother or does Joan try too hard to connect to a daughter that's slowly moving away from her? Does Lisa's flirting with Aaron open her up to a sexual relationship despite her underage or should he put on a stronger defence? There are several questionable scenes in the movie that leave you with a head full of half-truths and moral ambiguity, it's a film that leaves you wondering how and why these characters can make the choices they do but at the same time it makes it very clear that these are flawed individuals that all get burnt in this strange, explosive life that Lisa is living.

Going into this review I was asking myself if Margaret deserved a 10/10 or not. And looking over the film, I have to say it does, there is something so unique, so utterly compelling about this film that I can't and probably won't stop thinking about it, it's got a very real understanding of troubled relationships - quite apt giving it's awkward beginnings - and it carries itself through its emotionally driven storyline and Paquin's very brave and very ambiguous lead character who you will love, hate, sympathise and despise throughout the whole 3 hours. It's a damn shame that a difficult start killed this film - the studios buried this film on release, making just under $570,000 on a $14 Million budget - because it's one of the most interesting and engaging character dramas of the last few years and if you can find the time to give it the attention it deserves it's definitely one to look out for.

10/10