Margaret, written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me), starring Anna Paquin with key supporting performances from Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo, is the best film of 2011. Chances are very, very good that you haven't seen it — or weren't even aware that it was something you could see. And right now, it isn't — at least, not in LA.
Written in 2003, shot in 2005 and mired in post-production troubles and subsequent lawsuits, Margaret was not theatrically released until September of this year — and almost as soon as it arrived in theaters (very few theaters), it disappeared. A coming-of-age tale infused with post-9/11 anxiety, Margaret features Paquin — in the female performance of the year, per the 95 critics who participated in our annual Critics' Poll — as Lisa, a Manhattan high schooler whose role in a fatal bus accident leads to a battle with her self-absorbed actress single mom, a few reckless (if awkward) seductions and the obsessive pursuit of retribution on behalf of the accident victim. (There is no character named Margaret — the film gets its title from the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem "Spring and Fall.")
Is Lisa traumatized — or is she a teenager? The movie makes that ambiguity fascinating by refusing to make those options mutually exclusive. Both dryly funny and deeply affecting, Margaret is novelistic in its scope and theatrical in its approach. Its performances are heightened, but its gaze is distanced, even distracted; there's no audience surrogate, because identifying with a character would prevent us from seeing him or her as a complete person.
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Ben Affleck in Terrence Malick's To The Wonder at the Toronto Film FestivalMargaret opened in L.A. on Sept. 30, on a single screen, and closed two weeks later. In many cities, it never opened at all. Given its production history, it's something of a miracle that it played anywhere.
According to the L.A. Times, after spending years in the editing room and seeking counsel from friends such as Martin Scorsese (who called an early cut of Margaret "a masterpiece"), Lonergan was unable to produce a version that would, per his contractual obligation with Fox Searchlight, come in at less than two and a half hours. Searchlight demanded that Lonergan turn in an edit in 2008; he gave them his director's cut, which was longer than the 149-minute film I saw.
Why did it take three years to get from the director's cut to this year's film? Financier Gary Gilbert and distributor Fox Searchlight sued each other, and settled; then Gilbert sued Lonergan, a case that's due in court later this year.
Lonergan has given exactly one interview during all of this, to Time's Mary Pols, and even that was monitored by his attorney due to the ongoing litigation. "I love this movie," he told Pols. "I have never worked harder or longer on anything in my professional life. It would mean everything to me if the film could at least have a fair chance at a life of its own."
Embracing the film and giving its cause some year-end awards momentum, some critics and bloggers have been pushing Searchlight to provide that chance (#teammargaret has become a bona fide Twitter meme). In fairness to the distributor, after the nightmare of trying to get the film out of the editing room, and with legal action still pending, Fox Searchlight has had no real incentive to spend energy or advertising dollars on Margaret. When asked to explain why the film so quickly disappeared from theaters in the few major cities where it did open and why it failed to expand to other markets, Searchlight can fairly point to dismal box office returns. (The film grossed a total of $46,495.)
The counterargument, of course, is that the audience could hardly have shown up for a movie they didn't know existed.
A film given a blink-and-you'll-miss-it release of a week or two in a highly competitive market like New York or L.A., deprived of the benefit of significant advertising or media coverage (Searchlight arranged few press screenings, and the starry cast's promotional efforts were kept to a minimum), might as well not be released at all.
There is also the matter of reception. Margaret is a divisive movie, and not all critics are boosting it. "The deeper we get into the story, the more you need a flow chart to keep up," Betsy Sharkey complained in the L.A. Times. "It's as if Lonergan had far too much on his mind." The New York Times' A.O. Scott wrote that in Margaret's second half, "The sense that anything is really at stake, or that anything even makes sense, dwindles before your eyes."
These are not totally inaccurate assessments of the film, but they are willful rejections of Margaret's deliberate climate of confusion. When I called it "a remarkable mess of a movie" in my own review, I didn't mean that as a pejorative. Lonergan's 185-page shooting script, which has been making the rounds online, suggests the distracted nature of the film is not a product of the tough edit but an intentional aesthetic. The theatrically released cut, while not fully faithful to Lonergan's script, seems remarkably faithful to his script's spirit.
Why does Longworth say that the movie is "a mess" and "distancing" if she likes it? Why do good review have to come with reservations?" Every moment of "Margaret" is absolutely wonderful -- the kind of searing/harrowing/emotionally involving movie that comes along very rarely -- and there is nothing that is messy or distancing about it. I haven't been riveted this much by a movie for years.
"The Tree of Life" was cinematic diarrhea. I'm astounded that "Captain America: The First Avenger" didn't make the list as one of the best movies of 2011. It was a hell of a better movie than "Melancholia" and Margaret."
Further proof that movie critics don't know sh*t.
Hopkins began his novitiate in the Society of Jesus at Manresa House, Roehampton, in September 1868 and moved to St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, for his philosophical studies in 1870, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience on 8 September 1870.[9] Writing would remain something of a concern for him as he felt that his interest in poetry prevented him from wholly devoting himself to his religion.
Only pretentious, pseudo intellectuals would think that The Tree of Life is good. It was a pure piece of......ummm....pretentious, pseudo intellectual crap.
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I don't understand the praise heaped by the writer on Melancholia. It's a truly awful movie. Though it does have the distinction of showing us von Trier stealing from Thomas Vinterberg not once, but twice. The first half of the movie is a rehash of "The Celebration" while the second half is obviously influenced by It's All About Love. More importantly, the reasons given for liking the movie - "its subversion of Hollywood's two primary currencies: the special effects epic, and, in the casting of Kirsten Dunst as von Trier's alter ego, the celebrity confessional" - even if true. aren't reasons to like or dislike any movie. They are purely conceptual placeholders. And if you think Melancholia is a "special effects epic" you haven't watched a Hollywood movie since 1970. The tradition von Trier is actually referencing, and the true ancestor of this film is Tarkovsky. Not Hollywood and not Kirsten Dunst. Get a grip!
Where's "Hugo" or "The Descendants"? Did you not see these films? Your top 10 list is subjective, not objective.I understand you trying to gain traction for these little-promoted, little-seen movies you include on your list but you need to be more cognizant of the wider public's tastes. This is a critics' only list appreciated only by critics. The impression is you are trying to impress rather than express. You got one of them right. I liked "Moneyball."
Don't be an indignant philistine, Muckraker. Of course her list is subjective. That's what all opinions are, by definition. (Including yours!) If you are happy sharing tastes with what you believe to be the public at large, then enjoy that, and let people who have slightly higher standards do their thing. For what it's worth, I am not a critic and I have seen five of these ten films (plus a few of her also-rans), and I mostly enjoyed them. "The Future" is probably my favorite movie of the year, followed by "Melancholia." "Moneyball" was interesting, but not remotely among my favorites. I agree that "Hugo" was excellent, and I wish she had included it, but she didn't. That's cool. "The Descendants" was the very definition of mediocrity, but if you're looking for critics to celebrate it, you should be in hog heaven. It's showing up on all kinds of lists for reasons I cannot discern. Subjectively speaking, naturally.
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