Anti-Romance and The Rickshaw

WARNING: This column contains SPOILERS and a special kind of
hate against the continued economically unrealistic portrayal of rickshaw
drivers.

Dear Hollywood,

These were my initial thoughts after watching Sarah Polley’s latest directorial
effort Take This Waltz.

I’m hoping they will use it in the marketing campaign.

Skipping
to the end, the take home message of Take This Waltz was, “aren’t we
are all just a bunch of self serving loathesome creatures whose time on
this Earth is short lived and filled with UNRELENTING misery?” 

This movie can be
placed in the Anti-Romance genre of film making, exchanging meant to be
for you’ll do for now. File it next to Blue Valentine, Shame and Tiny
Furniture, as well as any other film where unpleasant characters both
fear and crave intimacy due to modern day angst. 

In the Anti-Romance world the grass is always
greener, but if you ever see it up close you will quickly realize all of
nature is dead and it was just a mirage to begin with. 

Especially if
you’re
Michelle Williams.

And in a way, aren’t we all Michelle Williams?

But give her time; she’ll be trying to cram herself into whatever nook society
deems acceptable before breaking down outside a Tim Hortons when she’s thirty
two.

So the plot. 

Take This Waltz is about Margo’s (Mic Wilz) brief
connection with Daniel (Luke Kirby) on a connecting flight home to Toronto, and what
should have been a moment of flirtation turns into a films worth of sexy danger when it emerges he
lives on her street. 

I knew this was a serious
film right from the start. Williams appeared on screen with dishevelled
hair and a shiny forehead. No foundation and no hairbrush means it’s
going to be grittier then a Toronto highway in Winter.

Luke is a rickshaw
driver. 

If his apartment is anything to go by, he is the worlds greatest
riskshaw driver. Or there is a deleted scene where he explains his
involvement in a profitable bank heist.

Margo is neither
happily or unhappily married to chicken lover Seth Rogen, who is working
on a cook book about different ways to make chicken. She seems
comfortable. He seems like he wants to have sex with the poultry more
then her. 

(I must interrupt myself to ask you to think of the most tired film conceit for the reveal of a published
book. Yep, they do that here)

William and Rogen have the most annoying relationship in the
world. Their coupleisms (the private behaviour and language of the couple)
involve baby talk and declaring cute ways in which they would like to maim each
other. “Hey I just got a new melon baller I want to gouge your eyes out with.”

Inevitably the baby talk gets too odd and Margo is
drawn to the rickshaw driver with his
sinewy arms and illustrations that see through to her very soul i.e.
really creepy
depictions of her unfulfilled potential. 

The middle of the film then
deals with the burgeoning sexual
tension. I liked those parts. The beginnings of the affair are
appropriately slow burning, showing the two partaking in activities that
involved close proximity, but how they fight the urge to grope. It was
torture to watch, but in an empathic way.

Then they eventually hook up. And that’s where it lost it for me.

I
know some complained that the stark realism of Blue Valentine got too
much at times, but I didn’t mind that. I never thought Gosling and
Williams belonged together to begin with, so their decision to separate
felt like a happy ending if anything. 

But this film tricks you. It
starts out with all the premise of a romantic indie, with the cute meet
and the exciting quirky adventures, and the soul baring, building up for
a “we should be together, but I should stay with my husband and do the
right thing.” But then it rips the carpet out. It crushed me how
increasingly
awful Williams character got as the film went on. At first she was
confused,
then as she gives into her base desires she turns into a needy
unsatisfied flake, which she probably was all along, its just we spend a
lot of
time with her. It’s a long film. 

But Polley seems to swap our sympathies around. We start
off seeing Rogen as a nice, safe but ultimately bland guy, but by the end he is
the matyr who sends his woman off to be with some rickshaw driver because he is
the better person. This may be true, but he may also be more simple then her. They never explore that option enough. 

My complaint is that it does its best to show us,
those who want the romantic dream or unattainable happy ending are bad
people, who will never be happy. This might be a
uncomfortable home truth for me, but it doesn’t show us a
good alternative. 

Sarah
Silverman, who plays Rogen’s sister, is presented as the most sympathetic
character (apart from her daughter), and even she hits rock bottom and
breaks her
sobriety with some thorough parental neglect. Just before she is
arrested she asks Margo why she had to try and fill the gap. 

I wish this
film had answered that too. 

I know the message of the film was don’t leave one
thing for something shinier, just hang out by yourself for a bit trying
to work out if what your missing is a shiny rickshaw driver or in fact
inner love and satisfaction. 

But couldn’t they have thrown some light
into the learning at the same time?  

Love,

Ellen