Maggie's Plan is an indie romantic-comedy starring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore.
Gerwig plays the titular Maggie with a plan; she lives in New York, works at nearby college and hopes to one day have a baby, even if it means she has to look after it all by herself in the pokey hipster apartment where she lives amongst piles upon piles of dusty old books.
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Maggie's Plan is one of those sweet, understated films that you happen upon without really expecting too much. Director Rebecca Miller has composed a sweet, poignant yarn that examines, amongst other things, our desire to create our own perfect personal outcome, despite that not always being a realistic option on offer. Maggie initially stumbles into a relationship with John, drawn by his poetic vernacular, raggedy clothes and softy-spoken wishes of something better away from his imposing wife.
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Relationships are punctuated with highs and lows are that strung across months and years, and Maggie's Plan strives to illustrate this at length (sometimes to a fault). The conclusion isn't sugary but instead sedated, leaving the story and its characters at a place that doesn't feel rushed or forced. It does take a lot of meandering to get there though.
The acting talent is robust; Gerwig steers the titular character a touch too close to tiresome manic pixie dream girl tropes at times, but her performance is otherwise good. Hawke does a great job of exploring the contrasting sides of his lax author whilst Moore is having a lot of fun as the scorned and bossy Danish wife. Travis Fimmel is a million miles away from his role as Durotan; here he plays a shaggy and shy pickle salesman. It's cute and quirky supporting characters played by Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph that steal the show though.
The Verdict: 6.5/10
It's cute and moving in the moment, Maggie's Plan is a fresh but rather fleeting take on the romantic-comedy that pains itself with rejecting genre cliches and cheesy meet-cutes.
Maggie's Plan is in cinemas across Australia now
Great review, you liked this a bit more than I did. I was really disappointed and I could never understand what Maggie saw in Ethan in the first place.
ReplyDeleteYeah that's true - maybe it was that rocking goatee? ;)
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