Take This Waltz (2011)

Jack and I enjoyed this sexy story named after a Leonard Cohen song about a childlike wife whose passion is ignited by a chance encounter with a handsome stranger, even though she loves her husband. Michelle Williams' (last mentioned in My Week with Marilyn) career continues to bloom with her role of Margot and funny people Seth Rogen (most recently in 50/50) and especially Sarah Silverman (known for her envelope-pushing on The Sarah Silverman Program, and other TV shows, she's had plenty of movie roles, including her stand-up/sketch feature Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (2005), I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, and The Muppets) are breaking through into drama (with humor and irony) in their roles of Margot's big cuddly husband Lou and his prickly sister Geraldine, respectively.

Former child actress Sarah Polley (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) (here's a photo), she was good in Go (1999) and plenty of others) was Oscar-nominated for adapting the screenplay to Away From Her (2006), which was the second movie she directed, winning two Directors Guild of Canada awards and earning a Best Actress nomination for Julie Christie. This is her third, packed with CanCon--Canadian content--as Polley, Rogen, and many of the songwriters featured in the soundtrack are from north of the border and it was shot in Toronto and Nova Scotia. The script was in the Black List, the ironically named list of most liked yet unproduced screenplays for each year. Go to 2009 and you'll see The Social Network and Cedar Rapids, among others, before this one.

The super-saturated colorful cinematography is by Luc Montpellier, who shot Away From Her and many more, and I must mention the equally colorful homes, for which I'm sure credit is split between the art department (Matthew Davies, Aleksandra Marinkovich, and Steve Shewchuk) and the location department. I loved those bright turquoise pillowcases and may just get a couple.

Although composer Jonathan Goldsmith (Away From Her, Casino Jack, 71 more) wrote a good score, there is no CD nor link to tracks apparent online. The songs are covered in some depth with videos on squidoo.

This, too, is playing on only one screen here (out of 46 nationwide), for four showings each day. I have no idea if it will go wider or just quit on Thursday night. Of the last eight movies I've written about, this is fifth best, but the competition is stiff, so it's still worthwhile if you can make time. Or save it to watch on video later. It will be important come awards time next winter.

Ladies and gentleman, it's milestone time. This is the 500th movie summarized on babetteflix (and the 480th I've watched in full since I began writing September 3, 2008--I keep a running total on my index page). Happy birthday to me! UPDATE: It's really 501/481, as I discovered the next day that one was missing from the list.