Take This Waltz (15)

Written and directed by Sarah Polley
On general release from 17th August 2012

Reviewed by Iris Judea

The classical triangle comes to our screens to be unpicked and unwoven into a sensitive, humorous and piercing piece of film from the talented Sarah Polley (Blue Valentine, 2010). A Brief Encounter wake shot in smooth camera movement, complemented by a script that creeps and lifts under the skin to reveal imperfect humans with good intentions.

The atmospheric tension supported by an evocative soundtrack (Leonard Cohen, The Buggles), oozes off the screen and portrayed brilliantly by a talented cast (Michelle Williams as Margot, Seth Rogen and Luke Kirby). Personal politics are placed in neon lights: "There’s a gap in life and that’s just how it is", Geraldine (Sarah Silverman) communicates in her stark honesty as she battles with her alcoholism.

The gap is delicately unravelled to its unquenchable reality; that being even in a dreamy rickshaw artist who presses buttons of possibly being seen? Soul and all!! The un-nerving childish demands depict contemporized co-dependency in humour and unease, generating a reflection of the impossibility it allows for growth. This multi-layered film, full of sophistication in its communication of the emotional realm of desire and innocence, gathers a stifling atmosphere which you see in the characters' inability to be able to see the trees from the wood.

Polley seduces the audience as like her characters in the film, to worm hole out into stark reality without sound or light, raising many questions of the after-math of fantasy, desire and the come down once the invariable bubble has been popped! Is this love after all? A refreshing observation on contemporary relationships luring us into the mine field and the dynamics that prove timeless.

This is an accomplished piece of work to say the least, which offers provocation, humour and subtext that many will identify with. Be prepared to sit up and possibly WAKE UP.

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