Kenneth Lonergan has finally finished Margaret, his long, long, long delayed follow-up to You Can Count on Me, which stars Anna Paquin as a flirtatious teen who may or may not have caused a fatal bus accident. Allison Janney, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo and Matthew Broderick (who reportedly fronted Lonergan $1 million to finish the project) co-star. Let's take a look at the trailer for the drama and decide whether it was worth the six-year wait.
Margaret's nightmarish post-production period is well-documented. After shooting in late 2005, the New York City playwright/filmmaker put together a three-hour cut of the film by late 2006, which satisfied him but not Fox Searchlight, who had given Lonergan final cut up to 120 minutes. When Lonergan wouldn't budge from his cut, a number of producers and editors including Scott Rudin, Sydney Pollack and Thelma Schoonmaker were brought in to try to convince him otherwise. When their suggestions were ignored, and Lonergan still refused to play ball with the studio, two lawsuits were filed (one by Fox Searchlight and one by Searchlight's financing partner Camelot Pictures).
In July 2010 though, Fox Searchlight announced that the director had finally completed work on the film, and over a year later, here we are: With a film in which Anna Paquin (now 29) plays a seventeen-year-old opposite a Syriana-era Matt Damon.
Margaret opens September 30 in limited release. Even if it's not a critical hit, at least it can succeed as a $12.6 million time capsule.