Margaret
Written and Directed
By: Kenneth Lonergan
Starring: Anna
Paquin, J. Smith-Cameron, Jeannie Berlin, Jean Reno, Allison Janey, Kieran
Culkin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, John Gallagher Jr., Rosemarie DeWitt, Matthew
Broderick, Hina Abdullah, Kenneth Lonergan, Michael Ealy, and Krystin Ritter.
Director of Photography: Ryszard Lenczewski, Editor: Anne
McCabe, Production Designer: Dan Leigh, Original Music: Nico Muhly
Rated: R for
language, sex, drugs, and a bit of violence.
The key
scene in Margaret, an epic yet personal
drama of trauma and grief in New York City, involves a class discussion of a poignant
line from Shakespeare’s King Lear.
The teacher (Matthew Broderick) asks for an interpretation of the line “As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods.” A couple of students give the usual
interpretation: our lives might seem important to us, but perhaps in a greater
scheme of things, we are nothing. But one student disagrees. If we are nothing
to the gods, then why do they give us so much attention? Perhaps we are more,
he demands. But the teacher won’t have it, “A number of scholars,” he decrees, “Have
confirmed this interpretation.” “But why?” the student fights back, as if he’s
fighting for his life. Why must our lives be so small and so feeble in the
large scheme of things?
It’s one of
a dozen bravura scenes in the second feature by Kenneth Lonergan, who made a splash
in 2000 with his drama You Can Count On
Me. You may note the 11 year gap, and if you see Margaret (which Fox Searchlight has quietly shoved into theaters as
quickly and quietly as possible), you may notice how young stars like Anna
Paquin and Matt Damon look. Mr. Lonergan shot this messy drama back in 2005,
with a contractual obligation to bring the film in at two and a half hours. For
years, he struggled to find the right cut, and things got messy with two
lawsuits, and even Martin Scorsese coming in to help him find that perfect cut.
After years of battle, Mr. Lonergan has finally, unsatisfactory, found a cut
that runs in the legal running time, though perhaps not his final vision. And it’s a shame, because as messy and
disjointed as Margaret is, it’s a
fascinating deeply confused film about the loss of innocence and the transformation
of guilt.
