Take This Waltz

Logline: A happily married woman falls for the artist who lives across the street.

Cast: Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Luke Kirby

Directed by: Sarah Polley

This movie starts off with a happily married woman, Margot (Michelle Williams) who coincidentally shares chemistry on a plane ride back from Cape Breton with Daniel (Luke Kirby) who happens to live on the very same street as her in Little Portugal, Toronto. This becomes an awkward situation when Daniel finds out that Margot is married to a man named Lou (Seth Rogen). This coincidence leads to plenty of conflict straight from the get go.

Lou’s relationship with Margot is filmed with great chemistry between the two actors. Their lives together are filled with pranks, crude jokes, insecurities, and playfulness. They’re so comfortable that it becomes the main conflict of the story. Margot is too comfortable. So comfortable in fact that she begins to purposely run into neighbour Daniel in the mornings while he begins his daily rickshaw driving job. 

Daniel is completely different from Lou. Daniel is a romantic artist who has the body type of any person who would run for a living. Lou is your average looking guy who uses his playful charm to make up for not having every girl’s dreamy attractiveness. Daniel is sexual, Lou is awkward and bland. Daniel is new and exciting, Lou is melancholy. 

I’m going to choose not to spoil this one, but instead reiterate the film’s message. To me this whole experience deals with the saying “the grass is greener on the other side”…or is it? During this whole movie Margot deals with temptation. She is succumbed to the sexual aura of Daniel, then she stops and rethinks.

The best quote I’ve heard in awhile was when her friend tells her that “life has a gap in it, it just does; you don’t go trying to fill it like some lunatic.” And I think that’s the tone of the film. Once you make a decision, you can’t expect to get back what you cut out, so it better be the right one.

That being said, Seth Rogen really impressed me.

He’s usually the funny goofball that people love to laugh at. In this film, he does have his usual playful trademarks, but his character is forced to go through so many different emotions. There is a montage of him showing many different emotions, emotions I had never seen from him before, and he does them believably. 

Take This Waltz subtracts the glimmer that Hollywood applies to appeal to a mass audience and adds raw realism in its place. I enjoyed this one as a nice sentimental reminder to appreciate everything that I’ve got.

7.7/10