Take This Waltz is a deeply perceptive movie. It involves us in the lives of characters who seem real, who make unwise and unpredictable choices, as we all do. It involves a love triangle but takes no sides; we may sympathize with all or none of the participants.

Certainly we should feel something for Margo (Michelle Williams). She is married and living in Toronto, the most forgiving of cities. Her husband Lou (Seth Rogen) is a good man, warm and interesting, not the kind who easily inspires wanderlust. Yet we sense something is wrong. She seems detached, disinterested. Restless. Before we’ve even met Lou she’s inadvertently followed Daniel (Luke Kirby), a soft-spoken artist, home to their shared neighbourhood. Made aware of the marriage, he proceeds with caution. For some men it is better to be wanted than to want.

Now back up and reconsider that. In 99 movies out of 100 Lou would simply drive Margo away, and Daniel would draw her in. Not here. There is trepidation and uncertainty every step of the way. These characters do not have their futures pre-planned by screenplay formula, and their fates may be drastically different than what viewers had hoped for. How much you enjoy Take This Waltz will likely depend on how incorrectly you think Margo, Lou and Daniel behave. Why must that be so? Can’t movie characters go their own way, travel in directions unanticipated?

Though it was one of the three or four best entries at the festival Take This Waltz was greeted with indifference at last year’s TIFF. I believe that uncertainty had a lot to do with it. Most movies, even many good ones, are afraid to let their characters alone. Meddling is what screenwriters do. As with her debut Away From Her, writer/director Sarah Polley retreats from that. It is a very difficult thing to create realistic drama. Real people don’t always do the right thing, or give speeches explaining motivation to some invisible audience. Smart movies know this, smart audiences are willing to accept it if the ends justify the means.

And they do. By the end I think I understood Margo and Daniel better than I have most other movie characters, because they possess those qualities uncommon in fiction but present in every real person: confusion, anxiety, unsatisfied curiosity. A drive owed as much to lust as to love. Instead of some insurmountable challenge they are faced with two equally appealing options. Such is life.

Director: Sarah Polley
Magnolia Pictures, 116 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5

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