Margaret: Theatrical and Extended Cut (Blu-ray/ DVD Combo) (2011)

I can't remember the last time I've been so moved by a film -maybe never. What's it about? Everything. It's hard to think of a major theme of human existence that is not explored in this movie. What it's mostly about is a teenage girl's confrontation with mortality. The title comes from a beautiful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called "Spring and Fall," which is read in the film by Matthew Broderick, playing Anna Paquin's high school English teacher:

To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leaves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! as the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sorrow's springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It is the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

Even now as I read that poem and recall the powerful closing moments of the movie -where Paquin weeps and knows why -a tear comes to my eye.

The film has an effortless realism. The classroom scenes and the lawyers are pitch-perfect. I mention them in particular, because movies usually get them wrong. The depiction of smart teenagers (and teachers) -what they say and how they say it -is dead-on. Every character is fully drawn. You know them all, and empathize. Some think the movie is too cluttered. I suppose the Matt Damon subplot is the least successful -at least in the theatrical cut -but I did not find the movie overstuffed. You need it all to appreciate the girl's coming of age as she deals with so many of the usual adolescent challenges, plus the outrageous fact of death.

This is a brilliant, spellbinding movie from start to finish.

Be aware that while this set does contain both versions of the film, it includes them IN ONLY ONE FORMAT EACH. The theatrical release is here ONLY in Blu-ray, and the extended version is here ONLY as a DVD. If like me you don't have Blu-ray, you won't be able to watch the theatrical release. And if on the other hand you wanted to watch the highly-regarded extended version in Blu-ray quality, this set won't give you that option.

Buy Margaret: Theatrical and Extended Cut (Blu-ray/ DVD Combo) (2011) Now

I was fortunate enough to see this film recently at the West End Cinema in DC. Having read some of the mixed reviews, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I found myself pleasantly taken with the movie. Yes, there are one or two digressions that could have been better integrated with the story (or, possibly, cut). Yes, the climactic scene could've stood some tweaks. And yes, between this and You Can Count on Me, I do prefer the latter. But this was still one of the best films I've seen in years! It is a mature work, and honest, and considered. The emotions and psychologies of the characters feel real and authentic. If you're looking for a light, generic popcorn movie, this film is not for you. But if you appreciate true to life drama with weightier themes that will challenge your preconceptions and stimulate your higher cognitive functions, Margaret is definitely worth watching.

An early scene, of the story's tragic inciting incident, was so brutal, so powerful, and so upsetting that I almost had to leave the theater. The main character's involvement in this scene means that she is forever changed, and it's to be expected that she will begin to "act out" as she struggles to recalibrate her life in tragedy's wake. You might not like, or agree with, everything she does, but she is fascinating to watch. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone sums it up best: "Margaret, for all its flaws, is a film of rare beauty and shocking gravity."

As a product note, the disc release includes both the theatrical version (on Blu-ray) and an extended cut (on DVD). From what I've read, it sounded like the director was pressured to cut the film down to less than 2 and a half hours for the theatrical release, so it will be particularly interesting to watch the extended version. Perhaps some of the film's loose threads will prove to be more interwoven after all.

Read Best Reviews of Margaret: Theatrical and Extended Cut (Blu-ray/ DVD Combo) (2011) Here

The 411 by Maria:

This is an absolute must see movie. A+ cast! Stellar performances by Anna Paquin and J Smith Cameron. Paquin plays Lisa a 17 year old girl high school student and lives in Manhattan with her mother (Cameron) and brother. Smart script and dialogue about how life chews us up and spits us out.

When Lisa sets out to find a cowboy hat, she inadvertently causes the death of a woman crossing the street.

Guilt and frustration alters her already "too smart for her own good" youthful view of the world. The movie takes its time and centers around complex day to day issues; death, hatred, real world events like 9/11, racial differences, teen pregnancy, drugs and divorce. Sounds like a devastating film? It isn't it is a centered, deep, thought provoking movie of the realities of the world our children are growing up in and how it affects them.

So well done, I will be thinking about it for days.

Anna Paquin and J. Smith Cameron along with the rest are incredible. Brilliantly acted! The scene of the bus accident is a harsh reality and Paquin will never be just Sookie to me again!

FYI: Not a child friendly film. Nudity, harsh language and a bloody accident add to the movie and are not there for dramatic visuals.

Want Margaret: Theatrical and Extended Cut (Blu-ray/ DVD Combo) (2011) Discount?

I watched the longer director's cut after watching the theatrical release on streaming because I didn't want to miss a masterpiece. It turns out an extra half hour doesn't make or break this film, but I was glad for the exercise because I wanted more clues to the film's intentions. It has a naturalistic sprawl to it that challenges one to tie everything together neatly.

Anna Paquin plays Lisa, a high-school student who inadvertently causes an accident and for her own redemption seeks some form of accountability for the victim's death. For all her noble intentions, she's not an entirely likable character. As a private school student in NYC, she reflexively knows she's entitled, but there's a fine line between being self-aware and self-absorbed. The victim's best friend warns her not to make the tragedy her own story. Adolescents don't feel more because they haven't experienced anything yet, they just feel more easily, she says.

Yet we're thrown into sympathy with how and what she sees. She's in a period of life where she's figuring out what's important to her. There's a cacophony of voices out there and what happens to seep in is partly what will define you forever. She seethes with teenage contempt for her mother while speaking with affable deference on the phone to her father, who lives on the other coast. She makes her first forays into sexual experience with both frankness and diffidence. She's the most openly guarded young woman on the Upper West Side. Paquin plays her part with electrifying and unpredictable verve. Matt Damon, as her math teacher, eyes her warily like she's a bomb waiting to go off, which is both amusing and well warranted.

Differences between the director's cut and the theatrical release: The main action is the same, but Lonergan flushes out her relationships with the various boys/men in her life, so later scenes don't seem so sudden. In the first half, it's helpful and in the second half, I actually prefer the more abrupt and ambiguous nature of the released cut. Lisa's mom has more scenes with her suitor and there are more school scenes, showing Lisa is involved in a play, effectively a therapy session for the kids and dividing the kids who are wrapped up in their earnest feelings from the ones who've chosen to take the view of ironic detachment. I could take it or leave it. But the reason I would recommend the longer cut are the shots of New York. The briefer shots of the city in the shorter version seem more perfunctory or maybe pretentious--yes, that is slow-mo walking. But in the longer version, they feel more organic. These aren't Woody Allen shots of the golden skyline and gleaming bridges. Rather they are views from buildings of other taller buildings. A cocoon of humanity.

And what I loved most in both versions are all the small things that are finely observed. The universal furious hand-waving signifying the person in the room to shut up as ONE IS ON A VERY IMPORTANT PHONE CALL; Lisa walking on the street through a pack of boys, vibrating with self-consciousness and defiance. I know if I had seen this in a theater, we would have all laughed at the teen boy crying after an unsuccessful phone call. It may be a failure of this ambitious work that was so exalted that I remember all the small, domestic details more, but everyone will probably take something different from this movie.

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