Take This Waltz (2012)
The couple: Lou (Seth Rogen) and Margot (Michelle Williams)
Why it stands out: When one-half of a couple goes off to be with someone else, it’s usually because their current significant other is seriously lacking. In these situations, you sympathize with the one who’s leaving. He sucks, you say, I’d leave him too! But in Take This Waltz, Lou isn’t so bad—sure, he focuses on his chicken more than his wife sometimes, but all in all, they have a pretty sweet relationship. So when Margot leaves Lou for Daniel (Luke Kirby), it’s an acknowledgement that sometimes people are simply driven away by the promise of something new. But as a wise older woman says in the film, “New things get old,” and Margot isn’t invincible to that truth. What ordinarily would be a sympathetic character becomes a flawed one, ultimately portraying a realistic portrait of relationships—and humans in general.
