Margaret

So, I saw this little gem from Redbox because it was an indie movie starring Anna Paquin, Mark Ruffalo, Allison Janney, Kieran Culkin, Matthew Broderick, and Matt Damon. The secret True Blood fan inside of me won out and I rented the movie. Thank goodness I only spent 1$ on this movie. It's a little sleeper from writer/director Kenneth Lonergram. I'm sorry, did I say 'little'? I meant it's a 2.5 hour sleeper from the same writer of Gangs of New York, I should've known. Technically it's a movie from 2011 that found it's way to 14 theaters and made a whole $14,000, just missing the mark of it's $14 million budget.

The story centers around Lisa, a 17 year old school girl played by Paquin, who witnesses a tragic bus accident in which a woman dies. She lies to the police about the circumstances of the accident in order to save Mark Ruffalo's job. She later has a change of heart and sets out to right her wrong.

The premise of the story, not to mention the impressive cast, gives the movie a really great foundation to start with. Unfortunately, the story was all over the place during the two and half hours of drama and dialogue. If the story had been greatly condensed and the numerous tangents (I'm not even sure I can call them subplots) removed, the story would have been extremely better. I should probably give some backstory to this whole fiasco called a movie. Everything was shot back in 2005, but for some reason Lonergram could not/would not finish editing the darn thing. Two law suits and a depleted budget later, he finally passed the job off to someone else who, from what I can tell, just put everything they got on film into a semi-sequential order. Hence the lengthy running time. Obviously, something happened after the filming of this movie that just ruined the entire thing. The story felt like an adapted play, in the way the characters were not tied to their environments and there was an incredible amount of dialogue. As good as Broderick was in the movie, his character needed to be completely removed from the story. He had no point in either advancing the plot of bringing anything to the story. The same can be said of the father of the main character.

Obviously, the editing had many issues. It seriously felt like they just put the scenes in order and called it a day. It's also apparent they had given up on the soundtrack, color correction, and pretty much everything else in post.

The actors did a pretty good job. Before I found out the movie was shot in 2005, I was pretty impressed that Paquin played a teenager so well, but now that's void. She did have some nice heavy scenes in which she did a great job. Allson Janney was also pretty spectacular in her four minutes of screen time.

So apparently, something went completely awry after the filming of this movie. If things had panned out as the director had hopefully originally planned, this could have been a decent drama. Unfortunately, it was a complete mess of a movie. "Because, this isn't an opera! And we are not all supporting characters to the drama of your amazing life!"

Celeste & Jesse Fprever

So, I had wanted to see this movie since hearing about it recently from a great friend. I want to say that it premiered at Sundance, but don't quote me on that. I do know that it's a first time writing effort from the amazing Rashida Jones and her writing partner Will McCormack. It stars Jones with Andy Samberg, Elijah Wood, Emma Roberts, and some other great actors. It's brought in about $2 million from it's widest release of 586 theaters so far. According to Jones, it was the movie that took forever to make, but thankfully it found it's way to Austin about a week ago and I was finally able to see this little gem.

On the surface, the movie is about a pair of married best friends, Jones and Samberg, who are going through a divorce but still spending every minute together as best friends to the dismay of their closest friends who think their behavior is unhealthy. Through some sudden events, they must both deal with their true feelings and needs while they face the fact that they are actually going through a divorce.

It's an unconventional break-up story, for sure. It almost reminds me of Breaking Upwards but with more more substance and a smoother story. The dialogue was ridiculously fantastic. Need an example? When Jones' character corrects Emma Robert's on the correct use of the word regimen, she replies 'thanks, Scrabble'. Okay, well maybe it's better seen in context. Some of the scenes felt improvised, but even if they were, the dialogue was still fantastic. The two main characters were written as so crazily cute you could not help but root for both of them. There was a looooot of comedy in this movie, yet it still retained it's solid 'dramedy' status. I think it's specific genre should be a comedic dramedy. I really enjoyed the exposition in the movie in that we learn so much by assuming they were at one point in their relationship only to suddenly realize we were completely wrong. The characters learn and change etc. It feels realistic, but it does hit on several truisms and cliches of the world. The ending was only slightly weaker than the beginning, but most endings are. It didn't feel slapped together or given a nice hollywood ending either as some movies are prone to do.

The beginning sequence, which told pretty much the entire exposition through still photos, was pretty fantastic and fresh. The soundtrack, shallow depth of field, warm lighting, and perfect use of jump cuts were exactly what I like to see in my independent comedic dramedies. There are some great song choices in the movie, but since one of the writers is the daughter of Quincy Jones, who would expect any less?

Hopefully Rashida Jones starts to get the recognition she deserves. Or more of the recognition she deserves, any Parks & Rec fan already loves her, I'm sure. Or Office fans. Andy Samberg played the character with just the right amount of humor needed and left his over-the-top antics back on the SNL stages in New York. Emma Roberts and Elijah Wood both became their characters and added to the charisma of the entire film.

My official opinion: This was an uber cute/funny movie. Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg had some crazy chemistry and the feeling of a natural ease between the two. The scenes with both of them in it were priceless. I'd love to see her pen more scripts in the future. "You don't always have to be right . . . even when you are".