A tour de force performance by Anna Paquin and impressive work from her fellow actors truly elevate the sometimes histrionic teenaged angst that’s at the core of Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret. The coming-of-age drama doesn’t really offer anything new in this intense story of a teenager’s ideals clashing with the more practical and harsh truths about the world, but despite a lengthy running time, the power and directness of the performances overcome the sometimes flowery writing and occasionally unfocused storytelling.
Margaret (Blu-ray Combo Pack)
Directed by Kenneth Lonergan
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Year: 2011
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 150 minutes
Rating: R/NR
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English; Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish, French
Subtitles: SDH, Spanish
Region: A
MSRP: $ 39.99
Release Date: July 10, 2012
Review Date: July 13, 2012
The Film
3.5/5
After Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) innocently distracts a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) on a busy New York City street, he runs a red light and hits Monica (Allison Janney), severing her leg. She dies in the street cradled in Lisa’s arms and afterward while giving her statement to the police, Lisa covers for the bus driver placing the blame on the now dead Monica. Some days later, however, guilt begins to get the best of her so that she strikes out at her actress mother (J. Smith-Cameron), distracted by her star part in a play about to open on Broadway, lets her schoolwork slip, and engages in risky behavior with sex and drugs. Eventually, she tries to right the wrong she’s done, but apart from Monica’s lonely friend Emily (Jeannie Berlin), no one seems really interested in setting the story straight. Angered, Lisa begins her own crusade to get some kind of justice for Monica.
Those familiar with Kenneth Lonergan’s previous visceral drama You Can Count on Me know the extremes of emotion that the writer-director is interested in pursuing. The writing sometimes gets a bit out of control here with lengthy, hyperbolic speeches that don’t always sound like real people talking and some plot events (a quickie with her geometry teacher played by Matt Damon, smoking a joint with her best friend in Central Park and ridiculing her English teacher played by Matthew Broderick who just happens to be walking past) that seem like unnecessary padding and dramatic dead ends. The shouting matches where Lisa feels like she’s taking on the world, whether it be classmates during lectures, her mother, Emily, the bus driver, or the lawyer who is eventually hired to see what legal steps can be taken in the matter do tend to pile up and go overboard during the film’s lengthy running time thus lessening the impact of the points being made. Eventually, we watch as Lisa’s childhood illusions about justice and fairness come crashing down, all the while noting that, at least in the director’s way of looking at things, people don’t really know how to communicate with one another very well.
There is a reason Anna Paquin has been a celebrated actress from a young age: she acts the socks off of this role (her reaction to a performance of The Tales of Hoffmann at the conclusion is gutsy emoting at its finest making much of the screaming and shouting from the previous two hours totally worth it. J. Smith-Cameron is just as superb as a divorced mother struggling with a rebellious daughter who’s sometimes more grown up than she is. Jean Reno has a touching role as a tentative new Colombian suitor for the mother while Jeannie Berlin has several evocative moments as the friend trying to make sense of the tragedy and conflicted about dredging it all up again to assuage Lisa’s guilty conscience. Casting Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick in cameos as school teachers doesn’t pay big dividends due to the underdeveloped nature of their roles. The director himself plays Lisa’s detached father living in California and only superficially involved in her life to any significant degree.
Video Quality
4/5
The film’s theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio is presented in a 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Sharpness overall is good but is not exemplary with contrast occasionally a bit too dull to allow viewers to hone in on the details. Color is quite nicely presented and always under control, even the bloody accident reds which come early in the movie and appear occasionally in dream sequences later. Flesh tones seem very natural throughout. Black levels are okay but no more. The film has been divided into 36 chapters.
Audio Quality
3.5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix is more frontcentric than it should have been. Though Nico Muhly’s music and the excerpts from Norma and The Tales of Hoffman get a fine spread through the fronts and rears, the majority of the sound design seems concentrated on the front three channels with the rears silent for long stretches of the movie, surprising when a good portion of it takes place on New York City streets, police stations, and Central Park.
Special Features
1/5
There are no bonuses on the Blu-ray disc. The second disc in the set is a DVD containing the extended 186-minute version of the movie. It’s presented in anamorphic widescreen and contains Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.
In Conclusion
3/5 (not an average)
Margaret (an oblique reference to a name in a 19th century poem casually mentioned in the movie) is a lengthy, histrionically-centered drama with strong performances but a relentless, sometimes overpowering tone. The release contains no bonus material apart from the director's extended cut of the film on DVD. Fans of the star laden-cast may wish to give it a rental.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
