Maggie's Plan - 2015 - Movie

Maggie's Plan 

2015

R - 1Hr 38Min - Comedy, Drama, Romance

Refreshing, invigorating, other positive words come to mind.  This is a SitCom. I hate that word, because it conjures up soap operas, at least in my mind, and wasted hours that people spend on a couch in front of half-hour relational entanglements and personal romantic and suspenseful tensions.  Well, there really should be a new word, a Relational Comedy.  A RelCom.  That’s what this is.

I’ll get to Greta Gerwig, Julianne Moore, and Ethan Hawke in just a moment, and a shining moment too, but first I want to touch on Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph’s roles.  I’ll call them both unexpectedly and pleasantly surprising.  Children of SNL, after the previews I’d seen, I was set for characters that were colored with that sensitivity of the SNL world, the quick and quirky changelings that you can never really believe in, delighted in yes, but of course were very put on.  As I said, I was surprised.  The directing and acting combination here throws us absolute winners of convincing characters that are also enjoyable.  In the middle of the first few sentences of Maya’s first appearance on the screen she does indeed become the friend character, and SNL is nowhere to be found.  Bill Hader, likewise, shed his Saturday personas, many of them, and spot on delivered a real and serious performance as a friend and dad, not to mention a perfect half-drunk scene were his “slip” was extremely well done and not “faked” at all.  Kudos to them both.  Well done.  They’ve managed to avoid the Jim Carrey syndrome of never being completely believable as anything other than an “over-actor” (quote from Liar Liar outtake).

The complete surprise to me here was Greta Gerwig as Maggie.  I say complete surprise here because ( I am now ashamed to say this because I feel like “where have I been?”) I have not seen her before in her other appearances in Frances Ha, Mistress America, or otherwise.  She has SOooooo many credits already.  Again, where have I been?  I need to see those films when I have time. She absolutely envelopes the screen with her natural and effervescent presence.  It just drips off the camera into the theater.  Her home-spun look and calm resolve play so well.  The scenes with the youngest child are classic beautiful and endearing beyond measure.  I think I could just watch those by themselves over a few more times.  This role seems written for her.  It may have been, I don’t know.   But she is the perfect antithesis to Julianne Moore’s exotic and overwrought character Georgette, with the French accent and ballistic scholarly credentials.  Moore of course pulls this off with ease it seems.  It can also be that Greta’s costumer for this role was spot-on perfect, down to the shoes we see in the opening, the done up hair, or like the one restaurant scene where I laughed at the outfit of the yellow checkered blouse conventionally 50s with the Middletown America turquoise (was it?) sweater.  Perfect, and schoolish, like her apartment piled with books.

In fact I need to pause here and just sum up the whole acting thing from every perspective: Incredible.  Every player in this film gives a stellar performance, and so therefore I must also believe that Rebecca Miler, director, has triumphed.  Talk about understanding the language of film and how to get a performance out of people.  Wow, she’s going to have a great career as a director.  That only goes back to ’95, even though she’s been acting since ’88.  Kudos to her as well for this breakthrough film. That’s what I keep wanting to call it.  Why?  Because I believe we’re in for more of here.  Like Clint Eastwood was at one time turning from acting to directing, Rebecca is just getting warmed up I believe.

Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore.  Now here is a couple of seasoned actors who’s chemistry in this case could not be more perfectly matched with the roles.  The scenes in the snow, the bedroom farces, the antithetical proton/neutron attraction/attack synthesis makes the story and the plot work. The scene of Ethan’s character John coming out of his “closet” in the confessional kind of way to Maggie is absolutely perfect, stunning in fact.  So well written.  So here is where the writer gets the honors.  Great characters written well, and great casting all around.

So far, I believe that this film we should see up next year for an Oscar.  For which nomination I would not be sure, but writing might be my choice.

If you’re in to RelComs, this is a must see.

And one point that I’m proud of, I called the last shot.  I knew exactly where the film would cut at the end.  In fact, there in the theater, I actually held up my fingers and pressed them together at almost the exact same moment the closing shot went to black.  I still have that editing magic I guess.

- Agitatus