Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)

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 & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Gerard Manley Hopkins



A film that ends up being as confused as its heroine and antihero. Its heroine channeled through an incredibly headstrong and misguided 17 year-old and its antihero through the city itself, specifically post-9/11 NYC. Lonergan's creates one of the most poignant character studies of this specific culture in what is, most likely, the best American film of 2011.

It is stunning that we were nearly denied one of the freshest, most honest and raw depictions of the post-9/11 mindset so many filmmakers (including one this year) have been chasing on the screen, an accidental masterpiece. The film bathes in themes of loss, grief and guilt in incredibly organic ways, the editing precise and purposeful, the whole a messy but truthful construction that ranks as one of the most impeccably acted films I've ever seen, packed with ideas on the page that put Lonergan -- if he wasn't already there -- in the top echelon of writers in the field.

Kristopher Tapley

Now showing at Athens Ciné in stunning 35mm!