Take This Waltz, or the Mild Inconvenience of Indecision

It's been a few days since I caught Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz, and I finally figured out how to describe the plot. It's Twilight for CBC listeners! Seriously, Michelle Williams' Margot - Toronto cred proved by her Pages tote bag - is torn between nice guy werewolf cookbook writer Jacob Lou, and the dangerously sexy vampire rickshaw artist Edward Daniel. To be fair to Polley, Waltz does have moments of genuine emotional honesty where Twilight has troubling gender politics, but there was still a main character with problems she would prefer not to solve. So the slow motion and golden lighting started to feel a little much. As endearing as Michelle Williams can be, my sympathy to any character who will gain mournfully into an oven door while sweating buckets is minimal.

Fellow Torontonians might appreciate spotting beer bottles from local breweries, or triangulating the location of Margot and Lou's apartment using local cafés and cinemas for guidance. My guess is Little Portugal.

Book Pile for July 2

1. Current (Incredibly Depressing!) Non-Fiction Read: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, Anne Fadiman
2. Next Cancon Read: The Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munro (this time I won't be trying to read the laundromat's copy between loads)
3. "I Picked This up Because the Guardian Gave it a Good Blurb and, Yes, I'm That Kind of Person" Novel: King of the Badgers, Philip Hensher
4. Crime Does Pay Book of the Month: The Heat's On, Chester Himes
5. Autobiographic Comic Option: French Milk, Lucy Knisley
6. Better Keep Sharp Knives and Army Camps Away From Me: Forbidden Colors, Yukio Mishima