it is no easy task to do what’s right, and that task becomes insurmountable when what is right changes with the passing of time during which one goes from being collectively praised as a preconceived adult to a fully chastised and individual one. Paquin’s character of Lisa, or Margaret, depending on how the film works in the viewer, is given narrative at first through a series of events and then through a series of fringe characters so bloated with unrealized dreams and sadness that they become occupiers. the film went through a protracted release and a contentious editing process, but all criticisms that include this fact are surface and superfluous. the film is magnificent and whole, and it speaks to the integrity of Lisa as written and acted that the scenes considered too bright of foreshadowing can be defended both character-wise and story-wise. this is not a world where people tell each other anything on time. all are late, and though armed with facts such armor does not stand up to scrutiny’s current inflation. Lisa embellishes often and is praised for it, and when momentarily truthful she is berated as operatic. but this is no dramatic reading listing the litany of wrongs done to the young; Lisa is hard to believe and hard to root for, even though the viewer knows it would be mostly right to do so.
