New Release Review - Take This Waltz

Directed by: Sarah Polley

Starring: Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman, Luke Kirby

Williams embarks on a would-be affair with neighbor Kirby.

There are two types of people who make indie films, those who want to escape real life and those, like actress turned writer-director Polley, who have little experience of real life yet somehow feel they have something worthy to say about it. Her sophomore feature has all the hallmarks of a script written by someone who has spent most of their life in the bubble of the artistic community.

Only an actress of Williams' quality could go from playing Marilyn Monroe to a dowdy housewife in the space of a year and be equally impressive in both roles. Here she's fighting a losing battle with a terribly written character whose "quirkiness" is so extreme she almost seems mentally handicapped. Taken in this context the movie becomes quite disturbing, Kirby's character seemingly a creepy stalker who gets off on talking dirty to a woman with the mental development of a pre-pubescent.

The dialogue is incredibly pretentious, following up a line like "I'm afraid of being afraid" with "That sounds like the most dangerous thing in the world." Every time Williams and Kirby open their mouths it sounds like "Dawson's Creek: The Twenty-something Years". Of course Kirby is a struggling "artist" who pulls a rickshaw but given the stunning house he lives in it's not that much of a struggle. You really want the two characters to get together but only so the movie can finally end. At a brain-numbing 115 minutes it gives us more false endings than the last "Lord of the Rings" movie.

Take this movie...away from me please.

3/10

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