Take This Waltz

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

I missed Sarah Polley's first directorial effort and this one almost slipped me by to but I managed to see it on its last day. And I was very pleased to see they have upgraded the digital projection system at the cinema it was playing at, so hopefully no more complaining from me about the terrible image quality. This looked great.

This is one of those films about a situation where there are no easy answers and the film manages to treat everyone pretty sympathetically. At least I thought so. It's objective enough that you can read what you want into it. I personally thought Michelle Williams's character was never going to be happy with whichever guy she was with because the problem was her.

It's nice that although there's very recognisable beats, situations never play out exactly like you've seen before. There's a real reluctance to ever make anything too big or showy. But there is a sad anxiety at the heart of everything here. You're just waiting for it all to blow up in your face but that never comes and in the end the anxiety remains.

The cast are all great. I do love seeing comedians use their skills in different contexts. They manage to make Seth Rogen out to be a real sweetheart and sexy.

There were a small handful of scenes that felt a little clunky, mainly at the beginning to get things going. But there were also a handful of scenes latter on that were just pitch perfect. A few nice directorial flourishes too.

I enjoyed this little film. And I'm glad I held off seeing it until the new projection equipment was installed. There was what looked to be some 5D footage in a few low light scenes that looked great on the big screen. Interesting use of Video Killed the Radio Star too.