With her remarkable first feature, Away From Her, 28 year-old Sarah Polley tackled the thorny subject of Alzheimer’s with sensitivity, courage and skill, receiving a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination for her efforts. Now, at 33, the erstwhile actress turns her attention to a similarly sensitive subject, a woman’s flirtation with adultery, and a second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Original Screenplay, seems likely.
The revelation that Margot is married comes after we have witnessed her first encounter with Daniel, the attraction between them immediate and obvious. When it transpires that Daniel lives right across the street from Margot, it seems as though fate is playing a particularly cruel trick, testing the stability of her marriage by causing her to question it. From this simple catalyst, Polley weaves an extraordinarily assured and subtle drama, by turns funny, erotic, whimsical and heart-rending, but always truthful, involving and emotionally charged.
Take This Waltz is a welcome departure from typical treatments of infidelity, which tend to establish variants of marital dissatisfaction before trusting an audience to accept an extra-marital yearning. One of Polley’s great strengths is that she is resistant to cliché and shortcutting, striving to create a film which removes any trace of artifice.
As with any film about relationships, casting is essential, and Polley has backed a winner in Michelle Williams, who delivers perhaps her most complex, nuanced and keenly observed performance yet. As a result, Luke Kirby and Seth Rogen have their work cut out for them keeping up, and one of the few instances in which Polley stumbles is when she elects to frame one of Rogen’s key scenes as a jump-cut acting showcase which finds the comic actor’s skills sorely lacking. For the most part, however, Polley is in complete command of sensitive, often difficult material, which should provoke admiration and discussion in equal measure.