ROMANTIC DRAMA; 1hr 56min
STARRING: Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Luke Kirby
Feeling the heat: Williams and Kirby
With their mutual ability to tap into the unspoken, film-maker Sarah Polley (Away from Her) and leading lady Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn) are Team Serendipity. And in Polley’s intuitive Take This Waltz, their antennae are on full alert.
Williams is restless, 28-year-old aspiring author Margot, married for five years, perhaps too comfortably, to kindly chicken-cookbook writer Lou (Rogen, firmly shrugging off his dude persona). She’s attracted to artist Daniel (Kirby), who is handsome, sensual and above all a novelty, and he to her. Their actions revolve almost completely around that desire as it simmers through an already steamy Toronto summer.
My only quibble is with the very degree of care that Polley takes, which can be too much of a drawn-out, cerebral thing. Still, as a fellow actor (most recently in 2009’s Splice), she is completely in sync with the three leads, who are open and brave with the unremitting intimacy as emotions eddy and alliances change. You might ask yourself what you would do in Margot’s place. But that doesn’t mean her choices are a given.
