Tale of cheaters we can love

By CHRISTY LEMIRE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Here’s how masterfully Sarah Polley manipulates tone in “Take This Waltz,” just her second film as writer and director: She takes the Buggles’ peppy 1980s anthem “Video Killed the Radio Star,” best known as the song that launched MTV, and finds unexpected poignancy in it. She actually uses it a couple of times in the film, in very different ways, and in both instances the mood she establishes is wistful and assured.

Following Polley’s 2006 debut “Away From Her,” which features the loveliest performance of Julie Christie’s career, “Take This Waltz” further establishes the young Canadian as an exciting filmmaker to watch, one with a maturity beyond her years. She takes risks, isn’t afraid to explore raw emotions and is willing to let her characters make mistakes that could make them unlikable. At the same time, Polley (who’s been an actress herself) never judges these people she’s created. Instead, she depicts the giddy, fleeting and illusory nature of new love, and lets us get caught up in it, too.

Michelle Williams gives the kind of subtle, complex performance we’ve come to expect from her as Margot, a freelance writer living in downtown Toronto with her husband of five years, Lou (Seth Rogen, surprisingly good in a more low-key, dramatic role), a cook who spends his days in the kitchen working on chicken recipes. They tease and play pranks on each other and share cutesy games of verbal one-upmanship while snuggling in bed in their colorfully bohemian home.

At first, these exchanges may seem a bit too cloying, too self-conscious. But as Polley comes back to them consistently, you realize she’s crafting a very specific, very intimate portrait of a relationship. Lou is probably a good guy and, for the most part, they seem happy. But their quiet moments, especially the uncomfortable misunderstandings over nothing, are the most telling, as if we’re watching a Canadian hipster version of “Scenes From a Marriage.”