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Margaret
Metascore
61 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 27
  3. Negative: 1 out of 27
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  1. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    Apr 26, 2012
    100
    Ambitious, affecting, unwieldy and haunting, it's an eccentric, densely atmospheric, morally hyper-aware masterpiece that refuses to follow the strictures of conventional cinematic structure, instead leading the audience on a circuitous journey down the myriad rabbit holes that comprise modern-day Manhattan.
  2. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Keith Uhlich
    Sep 27, 2011
    100
    And though not all of Lonergan's conceits work on a scene-by-scene basis (an upper-crust womanizer played by Jean Reno skews a bit too close to caricature), the film has a cumulative power-solidified by a devastating opera-house finale-that's staggering. This is frayed-edges filmmaking at its finest.
  3. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    Jan 13, 2012
    88
    Margaret, for all its flaws, is a film of rare beauty and shocking gravity.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    Oct 6, 2011
    88
    Who knows what movie Lonergan was searching for in all that footage? But what emerges from the tinkering and legal skirmishes is an occasional marvel, a kind of everyday highbrow social X-ray, Paul Mazursky by way of Krzysztof Kieslowski.
  5. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Eric Kohn
    Oct 4, 2011
    83
    Artistically, however, the movie delivers on a surprisingly effective scale, no matter how Lonergan sees it. Alternately perceptive, subversive, tragic and profound.
  6. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Mark Olsen
    Oct 4, 2011
    80
    A fascinating, deeply felt film of wild, untamed emotions and probing insights.
  7. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Sep 30, 2011
    80
    Margaret - titled after a poem - reflects its adolescent subject with striking accuracy. It can be frustrating and self-important, clumsy and naive. But it's also passionate, curious and filled with insight, so unafraid in its ambitions that even the flaws are interesting. Every bold vision requires respect; a few deserve celebration. This is one of them, imperfections and all.
  8. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Alison Willmore
    Sep 29, 2011
    80
    It's not a film that's easy to love, but like a song you at first can't stand but then end up humming all day, it works its way past your defenses and curls in close.
  9. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Oct 6, 2011
    75
    A half hour before the finish, Margaret loses altitude and starts looking for a place, any place, to land. Instead it crashes, in slow motion. But up until then, Margaret is committed and unusual.
  10. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    Oct 6, 2011
    75
    Besides Paquin, who delivers a once-in-a-lifetime performance as the maddeningly inconsistent Lisa, also wrenchingly fine are Jeannie Berlin as the best friend of the deceased and J. Smith-Cameron as Lisa's actress mother.
  11. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    Oct 6, 2011
    70
    Even in its truncated state, this is pretty gripping stuff; just think of it as an epic commercial for the director's cut DVD.
  12. Time
    Reviewed by: Mary Pols
    Sep 29, 2011
    70
    Lonergan didn't bite off more than he could chew with Margaret - this is his personal moral gymnasium - but he did bite off more than others might want to chew.
  13. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Karina Longworth
    Sep 27, 2011
    70
    It's less successful as a human drama than as a near-Brechtian exercise in what human drama looks and sounds like - a distanced but often car-crash compelling portrait of a teen as an unfinished being.
  14. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Sep 28, 2011
    67
    Lonergan's dialogue can sweep you up in a whoosh of personality and ideas, but it's hard to see what, apart from ego, convinced him that this story was so epic.
  15. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    Sep 30, 2011
    63
    For a 90-minute movie, Margaret has a thin story. So it's unfortunate that it runs 2 1/2 hours.
  16. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    Sep 28, 2011
    60
    Fine performances and bristling language compel in this overlong, often off-putting but well-observed New York story.
  17. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    Oct 6, 2011
    50
    Kenneth Lonergan's new film, Margaret, finally released six years after it was shot, now seems destined to become part of film history as one of the more stunning examples of a filmmaker's sophomore slump.
  18. Arizona Republic
    Reviewed by: Bill Goodykoontz
    Oct 6, 2011
    50
    What an interesting failure Margaret is.
  19. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    Sep 30, 2011
    50
    I wish I could say it's a resurrected classic but, alas, it's mostly a mess – a 2-1/2-hour mess no less.
  20. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    Sep 29, 2011
    50
    To watch the long, painful last hour of this movie is to watch all of his good ideas and smart impulses collapse into a heap of half-written, awkwardly acted, increasingly frantic scenes.
  21. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Betsy Sharkey
    Sep 29, 2011
    50
    Lonergan has created a forceful yet extremely fitful film that teases with moments of brilliance only to frustrate in the end. Margaret is an unrealized dream, one you wish he'd gotten as right as his 2000 debut, "You Can Count on Me."
  22. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    Sep 28, 2011
    50
    This unwieldy drama of conscience in the wake of tragedy is hyperarticulate but rarely eloquent, full of wrenchingly acted scenes that lack credible motivation or devolve into shrill hectoring.
  23. New York Observer
    Reviewed by: Rex Reed
    Sep 28, 2011
    50
    A 2½-hour art film that is something of a well-intentioned mess.
  24. New Orleans Times-Picayune
    Reviewed by: Mike Scott
    Mar 30, 2012
    40
    As well-shot and well-acted as it is, one can't help feeling there's a good movie in there somewhere. Unfortunately, it's buried beneath such an avalanche of extraneousness and artistic posing.
  25. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    Oct 5, 2011
    40
    Margaret definitely has many elements for a successful drama. It's unfortunate that no one was able to shape them into a functional movie.
  26. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    Sep 26, 2011
    40
    This is the first bad movie that has ever made me call for a sequel - to get it all right.
  27. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    Sep 29, 2011
    30
    Rarely has a film with such a great cast and so many moments of terrific writing and such high dramatic goals been so messy and disorganized and fundamentally bad.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 4 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. halfcentury
    10
    Although the film is long, it is not too long. I would be ready to see it again a week after my first viewing. The characters and situations are true to life, that is, painful and messy. The ellipsis at the end of many scenes, in which the scene seems to be cut short, was puzzling at first but contributed to the emotional power of the movie. The actors who played Margaret, her mother, and the dead woman's friend were terrific. I could really relate to everything in this film even though I have never been in any similar situation.… Full Review »
  2. desppun
    3
    The more you enjoyed Lonergans first film, the more you should be preparing yourself for a massive disappointment. For the record: Lonergan is a great writer, with a great talent; and for all his stilted, play-acting dialogue and characters, theres a real humanity and depth to his work. Its much, much appreciated. However, thats a discussion for You Can Count On Me. Because theres no room for it here. Anyway, its not that often I see a movie, in theaters, that looks like a very early, messy rough cut of something that could of been possibly much better, or even great (e.g. Melancholia). Margaret is a mistake, and the only thing more embarrassing than for the filmmaker to have this on his hands is the fact of how simply obvious it would have been (and still is!) to amend nearly all of its mistakes. These mistakes are mostly large, clumpy structural attempts to branch off, with sub-plots, or mini-scenes, into the perceptions and experiences of secondary characters, to get a taste of how they operate, or to see what theyre going though parallel to the main characters journey. However, it isnt always just a head-shakingly maudlin checker-boarding of scenes; it can also be as minute and simple as a quick comparison of thoughts or screams. This is a selfish juxtaposition issue that rears its head at EVERY opportunity. In fact, there should be an Ebert-ism regarding this: a director, after a first decent hit (or maybe two), now allows his unbridled ego full and entire authority over all his creative consciousness, to the extent that he wants to say this and this and this and this, etc. Ad nauseam. Its nothing but a complete loss of focus, allowing useless, extraneous information to barge in as it pleases. How many movies can you fit into one? And how long can you deceive yourself into believing that all of these themes, these situations and characters connect in an honest and emotionally engaging way? A film is not a 1,000-page novel, it never will be. Less will always be more, and the secret to success will always be those infinite suggestions held within every frame. Two-and-a-half hours of loud talk is not the answer. I bet the average person, including myself, could step into this and remove at LEAST 40 minutes of footage. Just cut every time you see something boring, every time you instinctively know that what youre watching amounts to next to nothing in the grand scheme of the picture. Every time you know youre seeing-not experiencing-something that youll forget five minutes after its occurred. Besides killing the flow of the main conflict at every opportunity, there are also some new, quirky, New-Yorky aesthetics Lonergan tries to arbitrarily incorporate into the picture; such as odd, extended zooms; slow-motion with often-times bad complimentary score; ironic, disgustingly self-aware cuts concluding scene after scene with a strange line or action of a character, implicitly expecting the audience to bowl over with ironic, disgustingly self-aware laughter; and even more self-aware camera angles, designed to make you believe that what you are seeing is just TOO INTENSE for a normal shot. And the film actually uses opera, multiple times, for dramatic effect. (Basically, if youre not a privileged, college-level graduate you arent allowed to participate in the fun.) Theres also the main, underlying theme to this film that, I felt, was entirely naive and general. It seems to want to take to the podium every time theres a classroom discussion scene -- as though by having young adults tackling major issues, the topical blow isnt quite so severe. What happens specifically is: everybody sits around and argues for about five minutes regarding their own personal views on America and the rest of the world -- terrorism, bombing of women and children, blah blah blah. And then, at the very height of it all, the scene just abruptly ends, and the subject promptly disappears for a while. How irritating. Almost cowardly. Its as though Lonergan read in his old, misplaced college textbook on film: movies are for raising questions, not answering them. He really took that to heart.… Full Review »
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