Film Diary 2012: Take This Waltz

Whilst Margot isn't unhappily married there is an obvious difference between her relationship with her husband to the excitement and mystery of this new man.

Margot and Lou's relationship is typified by cutesy and peculiar habits, a playful and prankful nature.  Indeed, both Margot and Lou seem to suffer from a certain amount of arrested development, but whilst Lou does, at times, seem to understand his need to be an adult there is a child-like nature to Margot that hasn't been allowed to develop.  There is something about the way Polley and her costume department have styled Margot, and the little quirks and mannerisms afforded to the character that suggest a certain unwillingness to become an adult.

Margot's relationship with Daniel is something different to what she has with Lou, on the one hand she claims that she doesn't want to hurt her husband, but it also seems that she is somewhat unable of having a more sexually upfront relationship with him, they have settled too snugly into a comfortable niche and she can bypass that with Daniel.  However, their relationship is chaste, more about the idea of what could happen, the electric possibility and, for Margot, that wears hard on her mind.

Daniel seems to know this, he almost seems to exploit it, and, generally, is very careful not to push things forwards physically, stating quite clearly in one scene that it has to be Margot who makes the choice.  It seems that Margot is someone incapable of making decisions for herself, which is perhaps why her career as a writer is closer to aspirations than actuality.  Likewise, Daniel works as a rickshaw driver, but is an artist behind closed doors, too cowardly to show anyone his work.  Meanwhile Lou actually has a publishing deal in the pipeline for his cookbook.

Polley's film is laced with, at times, heavy metaphor, and there are some scenes - an invevitable confrontation between Margot and Lou's sister Geraldine (Sarah Silverman) - that really labour the point.  But elsewhere the film is peppered with moments of genuine insight and painful observation, often told with a quirky - and occasionally archly comic (the aqua-fitness scene) - slant.  The film also does a fine job of puncturing the expectations of its own narrative, with Margot as our guide we generally experience things from her point of view, and the realisations she has are ultimately as crushing for us as they are for her, the things she leaves behind we must leave behind as well.

But Polley's film is not bitter about relationships, it's not a film about how all couples must be and should behave else they'll suffer the same fate, instead it's a meditation on growing older, much like Polley's previous film Away From Her.  It's no surprise that key moments in Margot and Daniel's flirtation feel like heightened moments from 80s rom-coms, the music swelling, the colours of Luc Montpellier's gorgeous cinematography swooning, and then, marvellously, reality cuts in.

An interesting and provocative film, that flits merrily between moments of fragile reality and relatable fantasy, this is a sad, honest look at love and people's expectations of how love is supposed to feel.

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