Firstly, some housekeeping. I have seen this film described in a Sunday newspaper as a romcom.Take This Waltz could not be further from the classic boy-meets-girls scenario that sends hormonal ladies flocking to the flicks.
In short, Take This Waltz is about two things 1) the moral minefield of infidelity and 2) a debate on whether humans need a relationship to be happy. Oh and it has Seth Rogen in it – so, it’s not all high-brow melodrama – in places there are laughs.
Michelle Williams is Margot, a travel writer eking out a living writing trade brochures, who comes across Daniel (played by Luke Kirby – a little-known Canadian TV actor in a first big screen role) at a re-enactment of a town whipping for adultery (erm…LOL) in Newfoundland. Mutually attracted, Margot and Daniel create a stilted bond.
Back in Toronto, Margot is married to Rogen’s food writer Lou, with their marriage bearing all the hallmarks of perfection, and a haunting underbelly. Their lives are punctuated with laughter, cuddling, and a desire to discuss how they would gruesomely murder one another while speaking in baby-talk. it’s odd.
But Margot finds something more carnal and adult with Daniel, in stark contrast to her sexless, lethargic marriage. Director Sarah Polley paints a hyper-realistic portrayal of suburban Canadian life – golden tones and cluttered photographs, nicely contrasting with Daniel’s bleaker, ordered starkness. He lacks care for material things as an artist, a thinker, a loner, and very different to Lou.
Take This Waltz shows modern relationships in a fresh and occasionally humorous light, and you have to hand it to Polley for creating something so realistic. But with that realism comes an enduring sense of sadness about love. There’s very little depiction of the highs and lows of falling in love, with the only allegory being a scene where Margot takes a fairground ride (a waltzer?) of flashing lights, music and being flung around – the ride’s abrupt ending both depressing and hilarious.
The acting is excellent throughout, although I wish Rogen wouldn’t play every character as a bear with the same Jimmy Carr guffaw. Kirby earns his screen-time with the more famous co-leads – his yearning and frustration palpable.
Williams is readily known for picking uncomfortable, Indie roles, and of course she’s great here, but I found Margot incredibly annoying. This was a woman who wanted her cake and eat it, who sees an extra-marital affair as something solely physically intimate, when emotional discussion can be infinitely more damaging. Never afraid to cross boundaries, some of the script may make your mother blush. Margot is bathed in pathos and bordering on pitiful.
Polley writes and directs her own material, and some of the realism here made me question how much of the story told here was fact and how much was fiction.
Whether that makes Take This Waltz brilliant or not remains to be seen, but it affected me, is highly sexual and definitely got under my skin.
A few final things. Take This Waltz has oceans of nudity on screen. No waxing here, but so completely natural. And comedian Sarah Silverman pops up as Rogen’s alcoholic sister in a strange sub-plot, with clever mirroring of her messy but loving marriage with Margot and Lou’s safe and boring life.
Take This Waltz is indie cinema at its finest. If you like to squirm and philosophise about relationships then I recommend it – but if you’ve been married for a few years, I would steer clear – just like a sexy neighbour living across the road – this film might be too close to home.
