[This] is probably the closest we’ll ever get to a William Gaddis adaptation, [...] [in which people] talk to each other and to Lisa [an astounding Anna Paquin], and Lisa talks to them, but nobody’s listening.

Full Review | Jul 7, 2022

This is a movie so dense and somewhat sloppy, somewhat wonderfully so, that I don't know I can do it any justice

Full Review | Jul 2, 2021

I highly recommend investing in the extended cut of this important drama. You'll be forced to wrestle with the meaning of justice...

Full Review | Mar 31, 2020

Anna Paquin offers one of the more indelible portraits of late adolescence put on screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 19, 2020

... captures the essence of New York City life (or the Upper West Side version of it, anyway) as well as any film ever has, while also portraying the difficult path to maturity of a 17-year old girl ...

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 30, 2019

Margaret has some intriguing ideas that don't often get dramatized in this fashion, and it has a fine cast bringing it to life. Still, like its young protagonist, sometimes it comes off as a bit too self-righteous and self-involved.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 8, 2019

Let's hope [Director Kenneth] Longeran's next film doesn't take over a decade to appear -- and that he learns where his real talents lie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 4, 2019

So contrived and ham-handed that its successes are mostly drowned in its failures.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

From its majestic slo-mo opening shots of New York City pedestrians to its devastating closing moments at the Met, "Margaret" enthralls like no other...This smart, literate urban opera is well deserving of a standing ovation.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 27, 2018

In Margaret, everyone has her own opera.

Full Review | Oct 2, 2017

"Margaret" not only faithfully captures a young woman's growing pains, it also serves as an emblem for our collective post-9/11 grieving process.

Full Review | Oct 7, 2015

This movie may be a lot of things, but finished isn't one of them.

Full Review | May 3, 2015

Knotty, ambitious and trading in messy human truths, it's the work of a master dramatist. Here's hoping Lonergan's next one reaches us a little faster.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 29, 2014

A messy-yet-poignant dramatic opera about the power of regret, loss, and worst of all, being a teenager.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 29, 2014

If two and a half hours in the company of quarrelsome, self-absorbed New Yorkers don't sound too punishing, there's much to like.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2014

It has failings, but they're not fundamental, and if anything they speak to just how much Lonergan tried to coerce into a single story. He was aiming for ecstatic transcendence.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 29, 2014

Lonergan's brainy script wouldn't work without Paquin, who makes Lisa a force of nature. As a walking paradox -- both controlling and completely out of control -- she's riveting.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 29, 2014

Margaret's journey to the screen may've been rocky, but the result is a singularly compelling study of trauma. It's a raw, messily magnificent near-masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 29, 2014

Margaret is less about plot mechanics than about the virtuosity of the dialogue, the complexity of the characters, and the detail and depth of their untidy world.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 29, 2014

At 150 minutes, it's way too long, with several superfluous scenes and subplots. On top of all that, moments of high melodrama and overwrought opera suggest that it has an over-inflated sense of its own importance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 29, 2014