Tuesday Night Movie Club: Margaret – extended cut

Join us for the last Tuesday Night Movie Club (TNMC) of the season, featuring a special extended cut of WFF 2012 selection Margaret. As always, TNMC screenings are free and open to the public!

Here’s the original write-up from the 2012 Film Guide:

A privileged, precocious and extremely self-absorbed New York City teenager, Lisa (Anna Paquin), in pursuit of a trifle, distracts a city bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) and later feels more than a little responsible for the fatal accident that follows. Though she initially gives false testimony to the police, Lisa’s guilt looms heavily and she seeks advice from a variety of adults including her mother (J. Smith Cameron) and two ineffectual teachers at her private prep school (Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick). Determined to live a morally uncompromised life, Lisa proceeds to set things right, turning several people’s lives, including her own, upside down. Filled with brilliant, literate dialogue and countless graceful visual observations on contemporary Manhattan living, Margaret (the title comes from Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem “Spring and Fall”) is primarily driven by a fascinating and fearless performance by Anna Paquin in a decidedly unsympathetic role.

The film is the second feature of acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan, whose much-admired directorial debut, You Can Count on Me (2000) earned several Oscar nominations. Filmed in 2005, Margaret went through nearly six years of editing and re-editing. A final version, approved by Lonergan, was finally given a token release by its distributors in late 2011 and has become a bit of a cause célèbre among cinephiles and certain critics who recognize it as a major work.

TNMC is presented in partnership with the UW-Madison Department of Communication Arts and WUD Film.