Sarah Polley's follow-up to her moving directorial debut, Away From Her, is a modern fable about a young woman torn between her cozy marriage and the handsome artist next door. By turns sweet and salty, quirky and dirty, idealized and bleak, Take This Waltz is a deceptively candy-colored existentialist rom-com—which is to say there's nothing quite like it. Michelle Williams plays the conflicted heroine, Luke Kirby is the unconscionably charming other man, and Seth Rogen is perfect as the Ralph Bellamy straight man. Before turning moralistic in its final minutes, it's a democratic and quietly devastating dissection of fidelity and its discontents.
In Sarah Polley's second feature, "Take This Waltz," first shown in Toronto, Margot (Michelle Williams) and Lou (Seth Rogen) are a contentedly married couple threatened by her deepening friendship with a handsome neighbor (Luke Kirby). The temptations and perils of "the grass is always greener" syndrome aren't as a gripping a subject as Alzheimer's, the topic of Ms. Polley's first film, "Away From Her," but the movie radiates a melancholy glow.
Among the hottest tickets this year are likely to be Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal's 19th-century comedy "Hysteria," and "Take This Waltz," with Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen. Since screenings often include post-show Q&As with the cast, you may also catch actors like James Franco ("Francophrenia"), Rob Lowe ("Knife Fight") and indie queen Greta Gerwig ("Lola Versus").
Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen play a married couple in turmoil in "Take This Waltz"
In tackling the role of Daniel, a potential home wrecker, in Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz," Kirby says he had to do "some digging."
A couple of movies we enjoyed out of Toronto are playing Tribeca before their theatrical releases with Sarah Polley's second directing feature Take This Waltz (Magnolia - June 29), starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen as a married couple who go through a few obstacles when she meets a charismatic neighbor and toys with having an affair.
In "Take This Waltz," actress Sarah Polley takes her second stab at directing after the well-received "Away From Her." While "Away From Her" was adapted from an Alice Munro story, Polley wrote the script for "Take This Waltz" herself – though it still bears a Munro-like interest in the passage of time. Michelle Williams stars as a tempted young wife to Seth Rogen.
Michelle Williams plays a happily married woman tempted by her neighbor. Add Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman, and Away from Her director Sarah Polley. Now that's music to our ears.
Actor Sarah Polley's transition to directing—with 2006’s touching Away from Her, starring the sublime Julie Christie—was a model of ease, and her equally ambitious latest marks Polley as a serious explorer of broken relationships. Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen (more exposed than he's ever allowed himself to be) are married Torontonians who have settled into a too-comfortable domesticity. The simmering friction, caused in part by charming neighbor Luke Kirby, takes the film in surprising directions.
(Showtimes and venues) —JR
Canadian director Sarah Polley teams up Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen as a Toronto couple with a disintegrating marriage in this bittersweet comedy.