Take This Waltz

By Benjamin Hunting, August 22nd, 2012

Take This Waltz is a Canadian film that tries and ultimately fails to put a unique spin on the familiar seven-year itch that plagues many married couples who have seen the passion evaporate from their relationship.  Director Sarah Polley adopts a heavy hand as she grabs viewers by the shoulders and brusquely steers them through this two-hour examination of the consequences of letting one's heart wander while still technically in the possession of another.
Take This Waltz is ultimately let down by its script and its casting choices.  Were it not for the efforts of the excellent Michelle Williams in the role of the straying wife, the film's dialogue — crass at times, incredibly stilted at others — would have crashed to the floor the instant it was uttered.  It also doesn't help that her eventual seducer is played by Luke Kirby, a man whose lack of charisma makes it astounding that any woman, let alone one who is married, would fall for him.
The by-the-numbers scenarios are all there: a couple (Williams and her hubby Seth Rogen) who speak to each other using a familiar structure that masks their inability to communicate, the mystery of somebody new, and the use of a carnival to suggest the excitement that is at the core of any nascent relationship. Perhaps the only effective scene in the film comes just before the end credits, when a quick montage that encapsulates the relationship of Williams' and Kirby's characters essentially gets across in two and a half minutes the film's entire message:  new things get old, too.  When tackling a story that is itself as familiar as the partner one has woken up beside every day for years and years, Polley appears to have forgotten that spicing things up from a narrative perspective is what is required to keep audiences interested over the long haul.