Take This Waltz
Magnet Releasing | Release Date: June 29, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
7
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 28, 2012
Take This Waltz, Sarah Polley's honest, sure-footed, emotionally generous second feature. Ms. Williams, one of the bravest and smartest actresses working in movies today, portrays a young woman who is indecisive and confused, but never passive. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 16, 2012
The film can feel a touch overscripted, but Polley and her actors effect true-to-life rhythms of speech. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJul 12, 2012
As memorable as it is insightful, Take This Waltz is one of the best films of the year. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 5, 2012
Known for comedy, Rogen and Silverman are the film's most delightful surprises, and their performances shine. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid HughesAug 12, 2012
Sarah Polley's second film is a masterfully painted portrait of an ordinary marriage under threat, dominated by a central performance of exquisite subtlety and observation. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyAug 5, 2012
Some strained metaphors and character tics aside, this proves both Polley's perceptive eye and Williams' ability to explore life-scuffed emotions. Wry, risqué and real. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJul 20, 2012
That's not to say the sobering Take This Waltz is nearly as emotionally agonizing as "Blue Valentine." Still, it's every bit as truthful in its examination of the evolution, and subsequent devolution, of love. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 12, 2012
Williams is so good, so natural, so believable in the role that it's easy to forgive her character -- or at least wish her well. That's no small feat, because she can drive you crazy. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJul 5, 2012
Somehow it is the waiting - for the fall that you expect is coming, for the marriage you figure will fall apart - that makes Take This Waltz one to make room for on your dance card. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesJul 5, 2012
Unfortunately for Polley, Take This Waltz is a good film serving mainly to remind us that "Away From Her" is a great one. Read full review
80
MovielineAlison WillmoreJun 28, 2012
Take This Waltz is an unusually kind film about infidelity -- not because it sidesteps or shortchanges heartbreak, but because it doesn't let any one of its characters bear the full burden of blame. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirJun 23, 2012
Take This Waltz is frank, erotic, often very funny and sometimes startling, with an underlying tragic sensibility. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin ChangJun 23, 2012
Despite a few tonal and structural missteps, this intelligent, perceptive drama proves as intimately and gratifyingly femme-focused as Polley's 2006 debut, "Away From Her." Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJul 12, 2012
Michelle Williams is a beautiful moper. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 12, 2012
The actors are excellent. Rogen falls very comfortably into the role of a 29-year-old who has fallen very comfortably into a living thing - a marriage - and stopped working on it. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJul 11, 2012
There is a lot of truth in this portrait of a marriage running out of the will to survive. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 5, 2012
Suffice it to say, the issues here are bigger than one woman's story. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartJun 29, 2012
Canadian actor Kirby's bedroom-eyes shtick is infused with just the right amount of creepiness, as Polley's film plays with the blurry line between soulful romantic obsession and just plain stalking. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 25, 2012
The film's emotional truth and honesty allows us to forgive a great many flaws. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonJun 26, 2012
There are enough unexpected delights, such as repurposing "Video Killed the Radio Star" during a critical moment between Margot and Daniel, to keep us interested in their drawn-out, teasing, tantalizing courtship. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn LevyJul 18, 2012
"Waltz" requires you to be on board with it from the start and doesn't often enough rouse itself to magnetize you if you're not. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonJun 27, 2012
Take This Waltz is simultaneously a coming-of-age film, a love story, a breakup story, and an indie quirkfest, and it tries to do so many things at once that it can't hit many of its marks cleanly. But at least it's never boring, and rarely predictable. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyStaff (Not credited)Jun 27, 2012
By never standing back from Margot, the movie courts vagueness as well. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 5, 2012
The new movie's a visual achievement and a narrative muddle: A color-drenched story of lust, love, and infidelity, it suffers from a vagueness that may be the point but that feels accidental. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJun 28, 2012
At best, it shows how intense sexual attraction can be a form of temporary insanity. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezJun 23, 2012
Take This Waltz is full of chance encounters, some less likely than a lobby with nine hundred windows or a bed where the moon has been sweating. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichJun 26, 2012
The troubling turns the story takes, which are meant as a rebuke to happily-ever-after stereotypes, are much more interesting in conception than they are in execution. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineNick SchagerJun 23, 2012
Williams embodies Margot's inner turmoil with an unfussy sense of terrified instability. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJul 6, 2012
Polley has a sometimes graceful understanding of emotional temperate zones and Williams, when she isn't being zombielike, is touching. But Margot comes across as such an elusive and unsympathetic twit that you wonder why we should care about her. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigJul 7, 2012
Williams is hampered by her character's limitations. What results is a mannered tale of an immature, empty vessel. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 2, 2012
So rich is that visual yield, however, that it needs no verbal boost. Yet, from the moment that Margot says to Daniel, while sitting next to him on a plane, "I'm afraid of connections," the dialogue strains and grunts so hard for effect that it threatens to pull a muscle. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJun 28, 2012
Is there another actor working today whose face registers the extraordinary range of emotions Michelle Williams can display? Even in a film as false as Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz, her swiftly shifting expressions feel unerringly true. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJun 23, 2012
This sophomore feature is a stumble backwards in terms of maturity. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 23, 2012
In theory, these are twentysomethings we're talking about. But they walk and talk like fortysomethings or fiftysomethings, such is their dullness and self-absorption. Read full review
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