A successful move behind the camera

Follow-up movies by successful fledgling directors are often labelled “difficult” 
as in “the difficult second film”.

For Sarah Polley, the child actress turned director who grabbed plaudits and kudos for her directorial debut Away from Her, the trick was in adopting a looser approach to similar territory.

Starring Julie Christie as a wife suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the effect it has on her husband, Away from Her was almost universally applauded by critics and audiences alike. It was raw and real and riveting in the simplicity of its emotions.

Now, after five years, Polley is back with Take This Waltz, another tale of long-term relationships but this time focusing on a seemingly contented young couple whose ease and familiarity is threatened by the young wife’s flirtation with a neighbour.

The 33-year-old Canadian says that in her film “there aren’t any heroes or villains”. Instead it looks at Margot and Lou (Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen) and offers audiences the opportunity to take sides as the relationship begins to fragment.

“I keep returning to the theme of long-term relationships. I’m perplexed as to why,” she says.

“We’re used to seeing the beginning of affairs or the end of them. I feel like we deal a lot in fiction and films with the excitement of the beginning of a relationship and we never follow up and say, ‘What happened then?’ What happens to that intensity, where does it go? And can we live without it?

“The premise of the film was to talk about the emptiness (in our lives) but also to look at what it feels like to fall into desire – how delicious, amazing and vibrant it can be. To pay respect to that, because in many ways it’s what makes life worth living.”

The movie has split audiences though not necessarily in a male versus female way. Rogen’s easy-going cook Lou – he creates chicken dishes with the ambition of writing a cookbook – is happy meandering along. He appears to have accepted the speed of their lives and the compromises: no pets, no kids. Just them.

Clearly Margot wants more but knows not what. Then along comes charismatic artist Daniel (Luke Kirby) to land like a cuckoo in the marital nest. Mutual attraction leads to secret platonic dates. It’s an affair of the mind. But it’s still an affair.

“I wanted to see a character in that state of restlessness, grappling with emptiness, completely up-end their life to try and solve it,” says Polley, who also wrote the script.

“(I began with) the image of Michelle staring at the oven on a really hot summer day, filled with restlessness and at the same time a kind of contentment; that feeling of a very stable, but somewhat boring long-term relationship.

“I’m just fascinated that people are having such polarised responses to each character in the film. There are people who think Seth Rogen’s character is the greatest guy in the world, and Margot is unbelievably selfish, and others who can’t believe she would be with him.

“I don’t think I disagree with anybody’s position. It’s just a very messy human situation and I wanted to take the point of view of all the characters equally.”

It’s a brave move. Polley points to the ennui that can infect any relationship, be it short or long-term. Observers of such domestic travails – and the film hints at the terminal boredom that can evolve from easy-going familiarity – invariably take sides. It’s a stance the picture adopts but there are no clear-cut lines of sexual or familial demarcation. Point-scoring doesn’t come into it.

An actor-turned-director as opposed to an actor/director, Polley was never inclined to play the female lead herself. Instead she found her muse in 31-year-old Michelle Williams. It’s hardly a surprise and Polley is anything but the first to be charmed by her.

“Margot was a real blank slate for me, and I needed an actress who could help me understand her – I empathised with the male characters much more. But when I met Michelle all of a sudden I understood who the character was, how to like her and make her a real person.

“It was Michelle playing Margot that made me realise she can never play someone who’s static. She’s too engaged, too intelligent.

“At the end, it feels to me like Margot has learned to embrace the imperfections instead of constantly wanting things to be perfect. She’s developed a sense of humour and a kind of wisdom about how to live in a more fulfilling way.”

Take This Waltz was shot in Toronto, Polley’s home town. She calls it “a huge character” in the film and wants the city to be seen as she sees it.

“I wanted to show Toronto the way I experience it – I romanticise it,” she reveals. “Through my eyes it looks fairytale-like. It’s a huge part of who I am – colourful and vibrant. I feel such a sense of belonging.”

Inevitably the question over whether she will continue to act arises. Will her future career be defined by movies she appears in to pay for her directorial projects? Polley’s answer is crisp and precise.

“I was a child actor and it wasn’t a great experience for me. What I always wanted to do was be politically active and write. Making films is like my form of writing. I’m always going to be more focused on writing and directing than I will be on acting – I’m adapting Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace next.

“But I do want to act occasionally with directors I love – I’ll be doing a film with Wim Wenders next year. It’s fun to be able to focus on your own thing rather than dealing with a million things at once as a director. I sleep so much better when I’m acting.”

­Take This Waltz (15) is on nationwide release.

A life lived in film for Polley

Polley began her professional life as a child actor in movies such as Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, playing Sally Salt.

She emerged as a rising star in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ and in Doug Liman’s Go.

She consolidated her status as an actress to watch in Michael Winterbottom’s The Claim, based on The Mayor of Casterbridge, and in Zack Snyder’s modern remake of Dawn of the Dead.

She made her feature directorial debut with 2006’s Away from Her. The film received Oscar nominations for Julie Christie and for Polley’s script, based on a short story by Alice Munro.