[TAKE THIS WALTZ
opens in Cleveland on Friday July 20th exclusively at the Cedar Lee
Theatre.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
New love can be thrilling and
passionate, but as one older but wiser woman says in Sarah Polley's
dramedy TAKE THIS WALTZ, “new gets old.” However, logic
and wisdom tend not to matter much to those freshly under the sway of
amore.
While visiting a historical site,
travel writer Margot (Michelle Williams) has a “meet cute” with
Daniel (Luke Kirby), a handsome artist/rickshaw driver (yes, really,
a rickshaw driver). On the plane home the two find themselves seated
next to each other, and as they talk it soon becomes clear there's a
romantic spark. As if this weren't indication enough of fate at work,
it turns out the two actually live across the street from each other.
There's just one giant obstacle preventing them from leaping headlong
into romance: Margot is married.
Margot's husband Lou (Seth Rogen) is a
nice guy who truly loves his wife and shares her twisted sense of
humor, but five years into their marriage there isn't much passion.
Lou is too wrapped up with tweaking the recipes for his all-chicken
cookbook to notice his wife's dissatisfaction. So despite saying how
much she hates and fears being caught in between things, Margot
spends a good hour and a half of the film agonizing over whether or
not to leave Lou. Of course she does eventually make a decision, and
the ramifications of that lead to the film's ironic punchline.
With her second feature, actress turned
writer/director Sarah Polley is clearly having fun playing with and
against the usual clichés of romantic movies. Up to a point it's fun
for the audience, too, but eventually it all just starts to feel a
little too clever, a little too forced and artificial. The same is
true of the excessive quirkiness of the characters. Maybe that was
supposed to be played for laughs, too, but if so it's done in such a
deadpan way that it's hard to be sure what Polley's intent is.
One can certainly appreciate moments
like the extended shower scene with Margot and her swim aerobics
class that is shot in as unerotic and matter of fact a manner as
possible to comment on the way female nudity tends to be sexualized
in the movies, while at the same time reinforcing the “new gets
old” theme. Polley also skewers the usual cinematic depiction of
sex later in the film with an intentionally ridiculous lovemaking
montage straight out of a Skinemax erotic thriller.
There's no issue with the performances
- Michelle Williams is excellent as always, and Rogen dials it down
to give a real performance for a change. Polley, whose previous film
AWAY FROM HER is a
criminally underseen masterpiece, once again shows a solid grasp of
technique and style, and the parts of TAKE THIS WALTZ
that work, work well. The way the
pieces are assembled, however, feels clunky. There are a lot
of interesting ideas and observations here about love, its depiction
in popular culture, and how that reflects back on real life creating
unrealistic expectations, but it falls short of being a completely
satisfying film. 2 1/2 out of 4 stars.
As published on Examiner.com
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