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2/5 Stars.
Movies.ie Critic Review
MARGARET (USA/IFI/150mins)
Directed by Kenneth Lonergan. Starring Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, Jean Reno, Sarah Steele, Matthew Broderick, J. Smith-Cameron, John Gallagher Jr., Allison Janney.
THE PLOT: New York, and bohemian Brownstone brat – and self-confessed “over-privileged liberal Jew” – Lisa is the sort of carefree, kooky girl who could really do with a punch of reality. And Lisa gets it when, trying to flag down a bus driver (Ruffalo) because she wants to know where he bought his cowboy hat. A middle-aged woman (Janney) is run over, dying, babbling about her daughter, in Lisa’s arms. What follows is a not-so-sweet hereafter, as the teenager grapples with her guilty conscience, having lied about the driver going through a red light. Finally getting in touch with the deceased’s closest friend, Emily (Berlin, delivering a ridiculously bad performance), Lisa gets lawyered up. With a little help from Emily. And her lawyer friend. And his lawyer friend. Meanwhile, home life is suffering, as Lisa becomes more estranged from both her insecure though successful theatre actor mother (Smith-Cameron) and her struggling California-based dad (played by writer/director Lonergan), decides to become a woman with the druggie Paul (Culkin) rather than her lovelorn best friend (Gallagher Jr.), and finds herself donning her best greyhound, Basic Instinct skirt for increasingly hot-and-bothered teacher Mr. Aaron (Damon).
THE VERDICT: There’s something deliberately uncertain and unresolved about Kenneth Lonergan’s Altman-esque, multi-layered story here. Then again, the secret life of the American teenager is a complex system of underground tunnels, all leading to glorious, blissful, stay-up-all-night, drink-as-much-as-you-like adulthood. Once you sort out your sexual identity, your personality, your politics, your ideals, your goals, your career, your look, your hair, your spots, your partner, your quietly irritating little brother, and that ongoing power struggle with your separated parents. Lonergan ambitiously touches on many subjects here, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, America’s terrorist problem, the crippling insecurity of actors, and the devastating power of opera, but all these strangds never really add up to one whole. And part of the problem lays with leading lady Paquin, an actress who still comes across as the producer’s daughter. Or a former child star. To be fair, Paquin does self-conscious awkwardness extremely well; she’s a natural. The title comes from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ 1880 poem Spring And Fall, about the loss of childhood innocence, and Lonergan comes close to capturing that freshness of emotion being trampled. He just shouldn’t have taken 150 minutes to get there. Originally shot in 2005, reports of a nightmare battle with the studio suggest this might not be the film that Lonergan (following up 2000’s You Can Count On Me) actually intended. Here’s hoping. RATING: 2/5
Review by Paul Byrne