In Contention

Tag: Anna Paquin

  • ‘Margaret’ finally goes free

    And you thought “The Tree of Life” had a protracted journey to its eventual release. It’s well over two years since I first wrote about the woes of Kenneth Lonergan’s chronically delayed sophomore feature, “Margaret,” and even then, it was a stale issue. The film was shot in 2005 — long before co-producers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella passed on, long before leading lady Anna Paquin’s career was transformed by “True Blood” — and has languished in post-production purgatory (with occasional trips into legal hell) ever since.

    Indeed, the wait for “Margaret” simply to travel from set to screen has now exceeded the already frustrating five-year gap between Lonergan’s marvelous, Oscar-nominated debut, “You Can Count on Me,” and the production of his follow-up. Some blamed Lonergan’s perfectionism in the editing room, others an unruly, 168-page shooting script; whispered reports from test screenings weren’t overly encouraging. For better or worse, I had assumed by now, the film was lost to us.

    Happily, I was wrong. Making good on a brief but firm promise made a year ago, distributor Fox Searchlight has named a September 30 release date for the film.

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  • ‘Margaret’ will see light of day, says Searchlight

    Last year, I dedicated a couple of posts to the mysterious case of “Margaret,” Kenneth Lonergan’s seemingly terminally delayed follow-up to his 2000 directorial debut “You Can Count on Me.” The film, a character drama starring Anna Paquin as a traumatised witness to a bus accident, with Mark Ruffalo and Matt Damon in support, was shot in 2005 — but has been stuck in the editing suite ever since.

    Working from a vast, ambitious 168-page script, Lonergan has reportedly been unable in four years to complete a cut of the film that pleases him. (This extensive LA Times report details the financial and legal consequences of his creative blockage.) However, just as the issue had slipped from memory — with many assuming the film would never be released at all — Anne Thompson dropped this brief but encouraging update from distributor Fox Searchlight a few days ago:

    Searchlight states: “we do have a finished cut by Lonergan and we plan to release the film sometime in 2011.”

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