New Film Review: Maggie's Plan

MAGGIE'S PLAN

Directed by Rebecca Miller
Screenplay by Rebecca Miller
Based On The Play By: Karen Ridaldi
Starring: Greta Gerwig; Ethan Hawke; and Julianne Moore




Maggie (Gretta Gerwig) ends up in a relationship with a married man, John (Ethan Hawke).
Later, they are married., but in a strange twist, she eventually decides she wants to return him to his former wife Georgette (Julianne Moore).

I will come clean right away, I am a huge fan of Greta Gerwig (though I would love to see her break out and play a different character type. Less quirky.). So maybe my blinders on, but I really liked this film. Not love, but really liked.

Great performances all around:
Greta as Maggie, as noted, love her. Here she spot on as Maggie. A little bit soft but you can see her being exasperated without saying a word, which is key to the part. She also comes across as quietly intelligent, which is also important because she is making moves/decisions that John does not see coming. With all that being said she is spot on funny here with what she is trying to pull off.

Ethan Hawke as John. Is always good in "Talky" films (See Linklater's Before /After films), so he is perfectly cast. He is self absorbed and yet a little aloof and clueless of what is going on around him.

Julianne Moore plays Georgette the first wife. Now she is not in the film that often but when she is she absolutely shines. Lets face it how can she not she is freaking Julianne Moore!!! With an odd maybe European accent she is outwardly tough and a little bit of a hard-ass but as the film goes on you see subtly that the toughness is a little bit of a facade. Note...a little bit.

The screen play by Miller is just okay. We have the plot, however the plot is so one dimensional it kinda of feels like it is almost a shell of what it could be. We do not dig deep into character development. What we see is what we get. In fact Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph have small parts in this film, however we really do not know much about them. I understand they are there to give some comedy relief, but again it is just a shell of character development. The positive is that the script rolls along at a good entertaining pace, coming in at 90 minutes. It just tells the story and gets in and gets out. The film moves through time quickly making the it almost more quirky, lets face it it is an interesting and odd script.

One quick note,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Ida Rohatyn as Lily makes her film debut. Clearly she is the front runner for cutest little kid in a film this year. You can see her in the still up top in the trailer.

3 1/2 stars out of 5 for Maggie's Plan. Well acted with a different kind of story. It is a fun quick watch.