Maggie's Plan (screened at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival), along with many indie films like it, uses a more ambivalent tone in regards to a character's reaction to dramatic shifts in their lives. It's a popular approach towards acting these days, but it can sometimes make a film seem like it is mocking a situation that should otherwise be dealt with in a genuine and serious way- even if it is a comedy.
Greta Gerwig plays Maggie, a teacher at a local university. She is single and seeking to have a baby on her own very soon. She begins spending time with John (Ethan Hawke), another teacher, who is married to Georgette (Julianne Moore). Maggie agrees to give John notes on his book that he is writing, and soon the two fall in love. They consummate their relationship the very night Maggie has inseminated herself with sperm from a guy she knew from High School. Three years later John and Maggie are married and have a beautiful three-year-old daughter. However, Maggie is done with John and realizes she doesn't love him anymore, so she hatches a plan to get him to back together with his former wife.
As the film is called Maggie's Plan, it may have been better to only follow her around the whole time. She is a character with a quirky nature in a cast full of overtly strange characters. If the story remained firmly told from her perspective, rather than from others in the film, she may have stood out more, and her motivation might not have been lost. Instead, everyone is just as quirky and just as detached as her, making it hard to become attached to any of them, as none of them feel like they are taking their lives seriously.
Gerwig (Frances Ha) is a good character actress, and she manages to represent what this kind of millennial character is supposed to be according to the world: passionate but passive about their interests. With no genuine moments or emotions. She's like a more idiosyncratic blonde Zooey Deschanel; usually this shtick works for her, but this story is so fraught with what should be pure human emotions that it lessens the impact of the situation.
Julianne Moore's Georgette is an intimidating character. Moore sports a very confusing European accent, the only reason seeming to be that it adds even more quirkiness to the movie. She has an almost militaristic strategy towards raising her and John's children and how she approaches her relationship with John. In one scene, she says Maggie ruined her life by taking her husband, but she is completely passive about it when it comes to her actions. She's the most well adjusted wronged woman in the world. This is an example of how the characters will talk about emotion and love but perform no action to back it up. Ethan Hawke's John is such a clueless man that it's kind of sad. He works and works on this book that he is writing so much so that he doesn't even notice the games the women around him are playing with his life.
There are some truly fun and funny moments in the film, which comes naturally with such a tone. Maggie's interactions with the children are amusing, and she has a few good one- liners in there about the state of relationships. Director Rebecca Miller (The Private Lives of Pippa Lee) may just love this type of film making, which is fine; she is in the same camp as Jim Jarmusch and Yorgos Lanthimos. The ambivalent formula does work for many people, but it seems counter intuitive to make light of love and marriage while also insisting how important it is.
Greta Gerwig plays Maggie, a teacher at a local university. She is single and seeking to have a baby on her own very soon. She begins spending time with John (Ethan Hawke), another teacher, who is married to Georgette (Julianne Moore). Maggie agrees to give John notes on his book that he is writing, and soon the two fall in love. They consummate their relationship the very night Maggie has inseminated herself with sperm from a guy she knew from High School. Three years later John and Maggie are married and have a beautiful three-year-old daughter. However, Maggie is done with John and realizes she doesn't love him anymore, so she hatches a plan to get him to back together with his former wife.
As the film is called Maggie's Plan, it may have been better to only follow her around the whole time. She is a character with a quirky nature in a cast full of overtly strange characters. If the story remained firmly told from her perspective, rather than from others in the film, she may have stood out more, and her motivation might not have been lost. Instead, everyone is just as quirky and just as detached as her, making it hard to become attached to any of them, as none of them feel like they are taking their lives seriously.
Gerwig (Frances Ha) is a good character actress, and she manages to represent what this kind of millennial character is supposed to be according to the world: passionate but passive about their interests. With no genuine moments or emotions. She's like a more idiosyncratic blonde Zooey Deschanel; usually this shtick works for her, but this story is so fraught with what should be pure human emotions that it lessens the impact of the situation.
Julianne Moore's Georgette is an intimidating character. Moore sports a very confusing European accent, the only reason seeming to be that it adds even more quirkiness to the movie. She has an almost militaristic strategy towards raising her and John's children and how she approaches her relationship with John. In one scene, she says Maggie ruined her life by taking her husband, but she is completely passive about it when it comes to her actions. She's the most well adjusted wronged woman in the world. This is an example of how the characters will talk about emotion and love but perform no action to back it up. Ethan Hawke's John is such a clueless man that it's kind of sad. He works and works on this book that he is writing so much so that he doesn't even notice the games the women around him are playing with his life.
There are some truly fun and funny moments in the film, which comes naturally with such a tone. Maggie's interactions with the children are amusing, and she has a few good one- liners in there about the state of relationships. Director Rebecca Miller (The Private Lives of Pippa Lee) may just love this type of film making, which is fine; she is in the same camp as Jim Jarmusch and Yorgos Lanthimos. The ambivalent formula does work for many people, but it seems counter intuitive to make light of love and marriage while also insisting how important it is.