Directed by Sarah Polley
Starring: Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby, Seth Rogen

Grade: B+

Let’s face it, character studies do not make good popcorn movies. They don’t tend to be terribly exciting and they’re not particularly funny either. Long stretches of quiet drag out followed by moments where you have to rush for the control to turn the volume down because you’re suddenly completely started by the noise, thus spilling greasy popcorn all over your new ironically phrased T-shirt you just scored from the Salvation Army. What these kind of movies do though, at least the good ones, is find a tense note and push it all the way to the brink until you can’t stand it any longer. Take This Waltz, directed by Sarah Polley, uses sexual tension to this effect, and does it well. The meat of the film revolves around an emotional extramarital affair in which the two characters use every ounce of restraint they possess to not physically touch each other, though it’s clear that symbolically the deed is already done. The tension these two feel is so palpable it becomes too much for the audience to stand, much less the two characters on screen.

The film centers around Margot (Michelle Williams) who has a good marriage in seemingly every facet except for a lack of sex. I wouldn’t even say there is a lack of intimacy, because Margot and her husband Lou (Seth Rogen in a rare dramatic turn) are very affectionate in a quirky, demented way. But the lack of action between the sheets is all too apparent and every attempt at rectifying that ends in failure and resentment on both parts. Enter dreamy Daniel (Luke Kirby). He’s everything Lou is not: cynical, mysterious and far better looking. Margot meets Daniel on a trip to Toronto, shares a plane with him and they are both surprised to learn he lives virtually right across the street from her. Convenient, yes, but the film is good enough to overlook this impracticality. The two begin having secret rendezvous where they flirt and even talk bluntly about all the sex they would have if she wasn’t married, but they never act on it. Lou meets Daniel and likes him. He invites him over to their house for a party. He pieces together what’s been happening eventually but is far too nice of a guy to have the explosion moment we’re used to getting in these kinds of movies, instead he backs off. Lou is not willing to fight for her, and Daniel is. Maybe that’s the message here, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Michelle Williams is fast becoming one of the best young actresses working right now. People who only remember her as the girl from Dawson’s Creek are doing themselves a disservice. She turns in an amazing performance in this movie as a character so full of angst, toward just about everything in this world, that she has to work up courage in order to seduce her own husband. Seth Rogen, meanwhile, definitely has limits. He’s an incredibly funny man and plays a great everyman. Most of this movie requires him to simply a sweeter version of the same character he usually plays, but when the script calls for him to do some heavy lifting, Williams is acting circles around him. Luke Kirby is good in his thankless role. It’s thankless because it’s virtually impossible not to dislike this guy. He’s a decent enough guy going through his own moral quandaries, but the fact that he’s leading Margot away from Lou, who’s just so fucking nice, makes us resent him.

A standout performance comes from Sarah Silverman. She only shows up in a few scenes, probably a good thing. A recovering alcoholic, she dreads the inevitable relapse that always seems to come to the afflicted, and provides virtually all the insight in the film. She sort of serves as the voice of the audience in some ways as she spells out the subtleties that we might not have picked up on. “New things get old,” she tells Margo at one point. It’s fairly early in the movie, but by the end we realize this is probably the most important piece of dialogue. It might seem heavy handed but the rest of the film plays it so close to the vest that it’s nice to have something concrete to latch onto.

Overall this is not a story interested in satisfying conclusions. It’s also not a love story, not really. It’s about unsatisfied lives and trying to find happiness wherever you can.

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Grade: A

Is murder ever justifiable? Should a man be condemned for his entire life because of one bad moment? These don’t sound like questions a comedy would normally tackle, but Bernie is a question of moral ambiguity disguised as a screwball, black comedy. The movie is based on a true story, for whatever that’s worth anymore, and because of that it doesn’t pretend to have any definitive answers. We know a murder took place and who committed the act, but we don’t know for sure what the motivations were or what the relationship between the murderer and the murderee was. This forces us to tackle these questions with our own logic, our own morality and our own experiences.

The title role is played by Jack Black in one of his most restrained performances. Gone are all the boisterous and obnoxious qualities that have made him famous, and instead we get an effeminate, awkward man who seems to spread good will wherever he goes. He is a mortician who caters to every need and whim of both the deceased and the bereaved. The town of Carthage, Texas adores him for his kind spirit. Most seem to either think he’s gay or asexual, though some seem to have quiet theories about what he does with the old widows that he comforts.

Enter Marjorie Nugent (Shirley Maclaine), a recent widow whose wealth is only outdone by her malice. Bernie befriends her, much the same way he does all the women, and starts enjoying the perks of being a rich, lonely woman’s friend. They go on exotic vacations together, staying in first class hotels, he learns to fly a private airplane and spends a great deal of his time and her money up in the air. He finally even obtains power of attorney so he can spend her money at his leisure. Then he kills her and hides her body for nine weeks, only being discovered when her granddaughter leads the police in a search of her home when Bernie isn’t around, in an icebox.

This seems mostly cut and dry, and to the town sheriff (Matthew McConaughey) it is. A gold-digger gained the trust of a rich old widow, gained power of attorney, then killed her and enjoyed her wealth all to himself. Except the movie gives us enough evidence that it might not be that simple. Bernie might’ve been a genuinely good guy who snapped after being harassed by a mean old woman for far too long. The town refuses to believe he’s capable of such a thing, and even if he did do it, which he did, he admits it freely once caught, he should be forgiven because of all the good he did for the community.

Black and Maclaine bring humanity to what could have been stock characters. If we don’t know who exactly Bernie is, then that’s okay, because this is the kind of movie that could inspire passionate debates over several rounds of beers.

I’ve talked about three of the characters in the movie but I’ve failed to mention the fourth and maybe the most important one: The city of Carthage. The structure of the movie moves through a compilation of interviews with the citizens of the small town. They are eerily realistic and though they employ all the clichés of typical southern small town people as seen by Hollywood, they come off as real viable human beings. They’re probably the best part of the movie, at once hilarious and a bit terrifying. Their faith in Bernie goes beyond any possible atrocity he may have committed because he’s one of them and they’ve seen the good he’s capable of.

The last thing I want to point out is that this movie is in fact a comedy, and it succeeds there too. So forget all that shit about moral dilemmas and conundrums and whatever other pretentious things I said, and just know that it’s pretty goddamned hilarious.