"Take This Waltz" (2011)

"New things get old," a woman sagely informs Margot (Michelle Williams) and Geraldine (Sarah Silverman) about relationships early in Take This Waltz. And it's this platitude which Take This Waltz ponders over throughout its story. Margot's five year marriage with Lou (Seth Rogen) has grown stagnant. When she meets Daniel (Luke Kirby), in meet-cute fashion, Margot is torn, considering having an affair but desiring to stay loyal to Lou as if she can fix things between them.

Take This Waltz almost feels like the second chapter to so many romantic comedies; this is what happily ever after is really like. It's an anti-romantic story told through romantic conventions and indie quirks. The conversations Margot and Lou have, when they're actually speaking to eachother at all, sound like the pillow-talk from Punch Drunk Love. They playfully describe gruesome ways they wish to hurt or kill one another. It's the only way they can actually muster up any form of talk, uncomfortably babbling in baby talk as if it's cute PDA. Their play-fighting is cringe humor that consistently descends more into painful cringeness than uncomfortable hilarity

The film deals with the inevitability of relationships to be sapped of their initial spark. Margot wonders whether her marriage with Lou is irreparably broken, but she also has to confront the fact that if she jumped ship for a relationship with Daniel things could end up just as dissatisfying in time.

Yet despite this sourness, writer-director Sarah Polley is generous with her characters. Polley, like in her film Away From Her, shoots the film with a sort of outwardly glowing warmth. The pain comes from how human and real the film's story is under its romantic mask.

Grade: ★★★