Sometimes you get the film produced and filmed and once you get to the editing room, that’s when the trouble begins. Shot in the mid-2000s from a script that was over 300 pages, Lonergan was ordered by the studio to keep the film under two-and-a-half-hours. Lonergan’s cut ran around 3 hours, and he insisted anything shorter would undercut the integrity of the story. The studio kept to their word and would not release the film. Attempting to compromise – and to make this a very Hollywood story – Martin Scorsese and his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, came in to work on an edit largely paid for by Matthew Broderick. (And you thought the film had celebrity cameos.) They got the film down to 165-minutes, which the Studio deemed still too long. Ultimately a 150-minute cut was released, and there was enough positive reviews that Lonergan’s 186-minute Extended Cut was released on DVD.
I’ve seen both and slightly prefer the longer cut, but both are an Okay drama with a half-dozen of the best scenes you will ever see. Due to multiple lawsuits tied to the film, Lonergan refers to both versions as his cut, though he’s also expressed hoping to go back and fix some issues he has with the longer version. It’s also interesting to see how fast technology and fashion evolves that by the time the film was released it was seen as a period piece.
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