Nicholas Bell

The title of the film is taken from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called “Spring and Fall,” wherein the poem’s narrator addresses a young girl named Margaret. The narrator instructs the young woman, “Ah as the heart grows older/It will come to sights much colder….It is the blight man was born for,/It is Margaret you mourn for.” And so it is Lisa who begins to learn that she’s not grieving for the dead woman or even fighting for justice. Instead, she’s mourning for her own loss of ideals, her own dissipation of youth and ignorance. A complicated, thoroughly impressive film with some excellent dialogue, it’s also a nostalgic time capsule of both New York and its actors from a few years ago, filmed in 2005. Since then, all our hearts have grown older.

Not unlike other years, 2011 had its share of particular titles that dominated cinematic conversations (though I don’t recall ever having had more conversations about a new film than The Tree of Life), with the end of the year heralding shoe-in awards fodder for hotly anticipated, overbearing biopics, starring Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams.

"While both a brutal and beautiful motion picture (though it doesn’t quite manage to justify a running time of nearly two and a half hours), an aggravating thread of saccharine romanticism dilutes the impact of what is in fact, a horrific and unforgettable atrocity."

Exploring the war with the Virgin and the Whore.

"...it’s been a minute since we saw a project that was so highly anticipated, so deliciously intriguing on paper, turn out to be so limp, dry and exhaustingly lifeless on celluloid."