MARGARET (R) A 17-year-old Manhattan private-school student, Margaret (Anna Paquin), witnesses a deadly bus and pedestrian accident and believes she directly caused it by distracting the driver (Mark Ruffalo). In the wake of the incident, Margaret's life of schoolwork, dating and dealing with her stage actress mother, Joan (J. Smith-Cameron), takes precedent. The bus accident continues to reverberate throughout Margaret's life, however, and she obsesses over what she believes actually happened. Her perceptions may be wrong, though. In her quest for justice, she runs into bigger problems and uncertainty.

Anna Paquin

Margaret, written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me), was filmed in 2005, and its post-production history was problematic, to say the least. Lonergan was contractually obligated to bring in a film no longer than 120 minutes. He was unable to do so. The studio allowed Lonergan to work on a longer cut, but after waiting a year, they pulled funding, and the director was left on his own. Six years later, Margaret was dumped into theaters in fall 2011, clocking in at 150 minutes. It didn't do well with critics or audiences. Interest grew, though, and Margaret has slowly made its way to more screens. Normally, this kind of background isn't necessary for a movie review. It's significant here because it's important to know that this theatrical release is still not Lonergan's final cut, which is rumored to be closer to three hours.

What's here is flawed. It's also ambitious, maddening, vital, frustrating, fascinating and overwhelming. It feels like a narrative wilderness at times because plot is secondary to character development and the explication of ideas, though it's exhilarating watching a filmmaker this brave and intelligent work on an epic scale, a form we usually think only befitting of a war or historical or fantasy plot. Margaret is deceptively straightforward at first. But as it opens up and Lonergan deals with how Margaret has inserted herself into the lives of others, latching onto the tragedy and misguidedly using it as a surrogate for any real feeling, the film's novelistic layers become pronounced. This is not a tidy film. It feels ragged at times, and the main plot of Margaret bringing up a legal case against the driver gets lost amid the narrative detours. To miss seeing so much good acting and writing, though, would be a shame. If only more filmmakers were this daring. It's about America, about a city and ultimately just about a girl.