To Those Who Care More Easily - Margaret (2011)
by Leo Mikaia
Have you ever felt like you are the only one in the world blessed with having consciousness? That your arguments are indestructible, that you possess the rarest skill, the ability to feel and distinguish right from wrong, only for everything to come crashing down? I’m sure it’s a universal experience at a specific time in our lives, and that’s why coming-of-age films are so damn popular.
All coming-of-age films have one thing in common: they overdramatize little details of teenagers’ everyday lives. Every problem is blown out of proportion, and little obstacles seem like the end of the world. That’s how teenagers see their lives, as something more important than they really are, so it makes sense to show everything through their lens. But great coming-of-age films build on this foundation to say something more profound.
“Margaret” by Kenneth Lonergan is one of those pictures. It does something I’ve never seen done before. Kenneth Lonergan shows the harrowing contrast between the inner world of a 17-year-old girl and the world around her. Look, I’ve never been a 17-year-old girl on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but I’ve been a teenager, and I’ve felt what Lisa felt. I think most of us have to some extent. Lisa is one of the most self-obsessed characters ever put on screen. She puts her experience above everyone else’s. She wants the world to acknowledge what she’s been through. She is a main character with main character syndrome, but the film doesn’t treat her like one. Lonergan is more interested in the life around her. This creates a beautiful conflict that’s exhilarating to observe.
There are a few scenes where the main characters talk, but we barely hear them. Instead, we hear voices around them. Random New Yorkers talking about their problems and their curious encounters. Lonergan underlines how insignificant the story we are watching really is, and that’s such a cool move from a filmmaker. Staging the story in New York was also a perfect choice because there is, probably, no city anywhere in the world with more stories to tell.
There’s no character in the film named Margaret. The title refers to the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins that Lisa’s teacher reads in class. The poem is about a young girl who is grieving such natural and mundane things as falling leaves. It’s easy to see how the theme of the poem connects with the main character and teenagers in general, who “care more easily.”
The story about making “Margaret” is as intriguing as the film itself. Imagine making a picture so daring and experimental that the studio delays the release of the film for a full six years. There are two hugely different cuts of “Margaret”: a 150-minute version released by the studio in 2011 and a three-hour-long version Lonergan put out a year later. The battle for the final cut of the film between the studio and the filmmaker resulted in multiple lawsuits that spanned years. The 150-minute version that wide audiences saw in theaters lacks the vision that makes “Margaret” a standout piece of cinema, but you still can see glimpses of what Lonergan tries to achieve.
This is a relentless and terrifyingly honest film about growth, grief, and how impossible it is to survive here without acknowledging each other’s pain. “Margaret” can be admired as a study of human behaviour and as an art that understands and captures what it feels like to be alive.
About the Author
Leo Mikaia is a self-declared film expert who enjoys sharing his thoughts about under-appreciated pictures in short and disjointed paragraphs.
“It started at age nine with a magnetic pull toward Jackie Chan leaping across rooftops on TV. Years later, realizing I needed to be part of the spectacle, I turned to writing. My career began with creating video essays about films for Adjaranet.com and writing articles for Cinemania.ge. I’ve spent my life chasing that feeling, writing wherever I can to keep the connection alive.”
He writes film reviews for our column The Kids Aren’t Alright. Stay tuned!