Margaret

A big part of why Kenneth Lonergan is one of my favorite filmmakers is because he’s also one of my favorite writers. Today, I watched the extended cut of his masterpiece Margaret (a closer approximation to what he wanted the film to be, though to my understanding it’s still not exactly right), and my feelings about Lonergan were reaffirmed. Since my first viewing of Margaret in January, I’ve seen all three of Lonergan’s films and left with similar feelings and ruminations on his chosen themes. Lonergan writes a lot about grief, as well as guilt, and the way we feel that there must be retribution for peoples’ bad actions. In You Can Count on Me, Laura Linney’s character asks her priest to condemn her for participating in an affair with her married boss. In Manchester By the Sea, Casey Affleck’s character attempts to kill himself with a policeman’s gun immediately after being told he won’t be prosecuted for the death of his children. In Margaret, we get a three-hour fleshed-out exploration of this feeling. Lisa feels responsibility for what happened to Monica, and her youth and naïveté sets her apart from the protagonists of Lonergan’s other films. Lisa has never been face-to-face with the grave injustices of the world before—those at God’s will (mortality, etc) and those at the will of people (the corrupt legal system, ignorance, greed, like that of Abigail’s.) Lisa still believes that something can be done to make right what happened to Monica. It is over the course of the film that Lisa punishes herself for what happened, attempting to force herself into adulthood—something that her and her classmates perceive as endless suffering—while also caring about everything with the emotional volatility of a teenager. Watching her go through what she goes through is sometimes funny, sometimes sweet, but it’s often horrific, disturbing, and literally painful to watch. I forgot how much I’d dread watching Lisa yell at the bus driver, or Emily, or Abigail over the phone—or having to watch her navigate her way through the world of men and sex with an understanding that it shouldn’t matter, that she is required to be cool, and that the multiple times her consent is violated, directly or indirectly, are less actual offenses on the part of her sexual partners but instead a result of her own greenness which she is so desperate to get rid of. I love Kenneth Lonergan because, for whatever reason, he had a very strong desire to tell this story. It’s not evocative of every young girl’s experience, it’s not even necessarily evocative of mine, but it is supremely real in the context of what it means to be a young girl in America, what is expected of her, the pressures that weigh on her, and the extreme horror that young girls go through as they grow up and are forced to face the reality that there is little justice for people in this world who are done wrong, and that includes themselves. I don’t know how Lonergan understands this so well, I am curious as to how, but I’m mostly grateful that this film exists at all, despite how difficult it was to get distributed. The three-hour cut is phenomenal as all of you have told me and adds some things that I do wish were in the theatrical cut. Multiple scenes with John Gallagher Jr.’s character, Darren, remind me of one of the very first harsh realities young girls will experience in their lives: the fact that men, even your close friends who you connect with, cannot stand to be around you once you’ve rejected their advances. I’ve never understood it and I’ve always resented it. I’ve had various guys in my life try to explain it to me, and I’ve always felt they’re not trying hard enough to suck up their sexual feelings and embarrassment for the sake of preserving friendship. This happens to Lisa with Darren very early on, and the scene of her rejecting him is so apropos of real life—how everything is so loud and she cries, apologetically the whole time—it establishes an early sympathy for Lisa that I think is essential. The theatrical cut is still a five-star film in my opinion but I wish it didn’t almost entirely cut Darren. Especially since I had a Spring Awakening phase in high school. Anyway. I could drone on and on about this film—I think and feel so much about it—I just wanted to leave my two cents about how Lonergan is very good at what he does and it’s a shame that he hasn’t made more films, but considering the difficulty he had with this, I understand why. In my lifetime I really, really hope I get to see at least one more.