Margaret
Since 2000 Kenneth Lonergan has been absent from the radar as a director. The reason turns out to have been years of acrimonious studio argument over the length of his followup project, a post-9/11 New York drama in a world of trauma, rage, blame, overtalking and interrupting. Originally conceived as a three-hour movie, it has been allowed into cinemas in a two-and-a-half hour cut. The resulting movie is stunning: MARGARET is provocative and brilliant, a sprawling neurotic nightmare of urban catastrophe, with something of John Cassavetes and Tom Wolfe, and rocket-fuelled by a superbly thin-skinned performance by Anna Paquin. She is overwhelmed with ambiguous emotion at having contributed to a disaster, and, compulsively driven to do something, draws everyone into a whirlpool of painful confrontations. (Peter Bradshaw)
- Anna Paquin - Lisa Cohen
- J. Smith-Cameron - Joan
- Mark Ruffalo - Maretti
- Jeannie Berlin - Emily
- Jean Reno - Ramon
- Kenneth Lonergan
- Ryszard Lenczewski
- Jacob Ribicoff
- Michael Fay
- Anne McCabe
- Nico Muhly
- Dan Leigh
- Melissa Toth
Hollywood Classics