Margaret

Overview

Margaret is a film which may never have seen the light of day - shot by American writer director Kenneth Lonergan in 2005, it was shelved for years due to disputes with the studio about it's length. The final version runs for two and a half hours, which may sound long but it's one of those rare gems which is so utterly captivating that your mind never has a chance to wander.

Anna Paquin, well before she falls for a certain vampire,  plays Lisa, a New York teenager who lives with her divorced mother and younger brother and attends a private school on a partial scholarship. She is mouthy and defiant with a penchant for extremely short skirts and heavy black eyeliner. Not long into the film, Lisa is out shopping for a cowboy hat when she sees a bus driver wearing one. She starts running alongside the bus as it's moving, flirtatiously trying to get his attention so he'll tell her where he got it. The driver, played by Mark Ruffalo, can't take his eyes off her and you can only watch in horror at what happens next. This moment has a profound impact on Lisa who sets herself an agenda to make the bus driver pay for what he has done.

Alongside an excellent cast including two rather earnest high school teachers played by Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick, Paquin is provocative, volatile and pure brilliance. As she begins to unravel she becomes more and more unlikeable. Questions arise; does she realise or care about the full consequence of her actions? Has she accepted her own culpability? How far will her destructive tendencies take her? But thankfully there are also brief interludes when we are given a glimpse of her vulnerability and true nature behind all the bravado.

This film is complex and theme-laden yet never becomes too unwieldy to follow. What's unfathomable is the lack of attention it has received both here and abroad but then again, it definitely isn't a mainstream film. It's Anna Paquin at her Oscar award winning best. Go see this film.