Issue 41: Margaret

To watch Margaret is to spend three hours in the nearly uninterrupted company of a caustic, bright, naive, and passionate 17-year-old girl as she navigates a difficult passage of her life.

An Interview with Kenneth Lonergan

"I remember from a sort of a child-like point of view in a way—I’ve never felt like I’ve completely mastered what it’s like to be a grown up."

An Interview with Matthew Broderick

"I think it’s a movie to really be proud of, no matter how difficult it was to make. I’m glad that Kenny survived it, really, and that everyone will gradually come to watch Margaret eventually. I think it’s something that will last."

Letter from the Editor

Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret, a true masterpiece of the new millennium, is an utterly unique, stubbornly sprawling, fiercely compassionate film that attempts nothing less than to capture an entire world within its three hours.

Mark Ruffalo and Anna Paquin in MARGARET | Fox Searchlight

The Blighted Language of Kenneth Lonergan

Matt Brennan·

Lonergan's project, in both You Can Count on Me and Margaret, is to crystallize the exact moment at which our emotions run aground on the shoals of their expression, made somehow smaller, shabbier, by the very act of admitting them.

An Interview with J. Smith-Cameron

"I find Joan's behavior embarrassingly human but endearing. As a middle-aged woman who is now a mother of a teenage girl myself, I think it's a strikingly accurate character-relationship dynamic."

An Interview with Matt Damon

"Kenny has such a deep understanding of his characters, and also a deep understanding of human behavior. The way his characters relate to each other just strikes me as completely real and relatable, in a way I find profound in its simplicity."

This Is Her Youth: The Unspoken Language of Margaret

Sean Nelson·

The paltriness of language, or at least its insufficiency, is an unusual subject for a film written and directed by a playwright as verbally dexterous as Lonergan, but it enables a startling feat of expression.

An Interview with Allison Janney

"I’ve gotten better at letting it go, but something like that scene sort of stays with you for a bit. It’s hard to shake that off after the work is done. It definitely involved a really long hot shower and maybe a bath and a martini or something."

What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking About Things: Crisis and Discourse in Margaret

Charles Bramesco·