Maggie's Plan (2015)

I love everything Greta Gerwig does. Her latest treat is superb. Well cast-excellent script-and the pace is perfect. There is not a dull moment. There is also not a really exciting moment..but that is Greta's style. Subtlety..with clever pretense..clever dialogue..clever situations..clever..clever...clever..

And, as always, it's Gerwig's persona that is so uniquely compelling. Let me repeat..Greta Gerwig is a very unique persona, unique in a very delightful way. That innocent, humble,honest, center is surrounded by an aura of enlightenment that somehow makes her a bit of a lovable sage. Several of Greta's starring roles/movies resemble Woody Allen's style. This is no coincidence. And, give Greta another pat on the back for actually being more entertaining..more clever than..the Woodster. There aren't any really laugh out loud moments..no, much too subtle for that, but, after digesting the entire flic, one is left with a satisfied, entertained- BURP ! In fact, I give this movie 4 of 5 burps. Thanks Greta Gerwig. Give us another tasty helping...soon!

Fmovies: Subtle, nice, funny, lovely, smart, wise & warm, this is a brilliant tale of relationships in our time. A young woman, Maggie, looks at her failures in coupling and decides to have a child alone, before hooking up with a married man, John. After a great barrage of conception gags, the film settles into a deeper exploration of blended family dynamics and good-girl behaviour.

Maggie, Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha, Mistress America), falls in love with John, Ethan Hawke (Boyhood) destroying his volatile marriage to the brilliant and difficult Georgette, Julianne Moore (Almost Heaven, The Kids are Alright, Still Alice).

Greta Gerwig plays a slightly deeper and more rounded young New Yorker than her 2 brilliant previous efforts & Ethan Hawke again creates a deeply flawed yet sympathetic father as he did in Boyhood. Julianne Moore entertainingly pushes the boundaries of her comfort zone as a fierce Danish academic in a supporting role. The trio's 3 children are also terrific.

Set in NYC, you have to be reminded of Woody Allen and he'd be proud if he'd made this one; a brilliant piece of cinema in every way. Maggie's Plan is an original, timeless but contemporary story full of domestic tension, rich characters, interesting locations and beguiling images. The writer/director is Rebecca Miller, daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, Streetcar Named Desire).

I loved it for its intelligence and I laughed a lot right up until the satisfying ending. At 99 minutes it's taut, neat and spot-on with modern love issues. One of the year's best so far, 4 & ½ stars.

Here New York singleton Maggie is played by Greta Gerwig, an actress who can be funny and serious, pretty and plain, switching from one to the other in seconds. Her original plan is to have a baby through a sperm donor, although later in the movie she conceives (sorry for the pun) another plan involving her husband, self-absorbed academic John (Ethan Hawke in a classic verbose role), and his ex-wife, the Danish ambitious academic Georgette (the ever-able Juliette Moore). The moral of the story is that our plans often don't work out as we expect and, even when they do, it might not actually be because of us.

I think this is an under-rated movie with interesting characters and real charm. There are no action sequences or dramatic conflicts, but it is quietly engaging and insightful. Rebecaa Miller wrote and directed it from the novel by Karen Rinaldi and the most intriguing relationship is between Maggie and Georgette, so some will be tempted to dismiss it as a woman's film, but I recommend it to anyone who wants something a bit more lifelike and thoughtful compared to the more traditional rom-com.

Maggie's Plan fmovies. There's nothing at all in it. It looks like a children fairy tail with poor characters. The story is predictable, the screenplay is boring, the way actors play is mediocre, the characterization is ridicule. I decided to go see this movie as I've read good reviews on cinema websites and I couldn't help but notice these days people don't really evaluate movies for what they are. In this case, a waste of time and money. As Julianne Moore can still be saved (still, why do good actors accept such poor screenplays?), the movie itself is a low-concentrate of fine sentiments, romantic narrative and some (few) absurd situations which should be funny but they actually aren't. It can easily enter the top 3 worst movies of the year.

Among many other things, the best dialogue-driven character studies can create a sense of real connectedness between the viewer and the people depicted on screen. If well narrated, those films can serve as a mirror to your own experiences or open up new perspectives on life in general. Directors that have managed to achieve this in the past like (the early) Woody Allen or Noah Baumbach are also often named as references when it comes to Rebecca Miller's latest film Maggie's Plan.

Indeed, when you saw the trailer, you got the feeling a new Baumbach is coming up: set in New York, starring Greta Gerwig playing a Gerta Gerwig-character and a plot revolving around existential questions of a group of well-educated, slightly quirky people. I love all of these elements and mixed with a cast including Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore I was very excited to see this film.

However, the aspects of indie films I mentioned above which I deem so important are all missing here. Once you have accepted the awkward premise (which is far-fetched enough) that the protagonist Maggie (Greta Gerwig) desperately wants to reunite her husband John (Ethan Hawke) with his ex-wife (Julianne Moore), the film misses all its chances to handle the characters' issues with precision and depth. This starts with the poor writing which does include some amusing lines and interesting insights (my favourite being John's take on unborn babies) but still fails to make the characters' motivations and intentions appear reasonable. Despite the fact that they are always quite short, films like The Squid and the Whale never feel rushed. In Maggie's Plan we see many rapid developments and turns in attitude that are often hard to make sense of.

Apart from problems in the script, the film suffers from the way it is directed. One major element is a trope that is more than predominant in recent cinema which comes down to a formula many directors seem to have internalised deeply: Shaky camera = Authenticity. In order to immerse the viewer within a scene, many films employ this technique, however in many cases in such a exaggerated manner that it becomes a parody of itself (Exhibit A: The Hunger Games; Counterexample (how it should be done): Children of Men). The same is the case in Maggie's Plan. It is the film's ambition to live up to its predecessors by offering a perspective that feels true to life. But unnecessary zoom-ins, shakes and pans occasionally disrupt the viewing experience. Films that rely on quiet, emotional scenes like this one benefit from a rather still, observant depiction, so that the viewer likely forgets that there is a camera.

Having said all this, I still consider Maggie's Plan an average film which is mostly due to the cast. The actors do what they can to give the weird script at least some emotional depth (even though I add Julianne Moore's choice of accent to the list of things that bewildered me). My harsh critique is probably due to high expectations. But I just didn't assume they were that high, as I would have been happy, if some main elements that separate these kinds of films from major blockbusters had been displayed.

My main concern with this review is to counter the many voices comparing this film to indie masterpieces like Frances Ha or Annie Hall. Maggie's Plan is not even close to being in the same league. To quote Pulp Fiction, it is not even the same sport.

A narcissistic man-child falls for a frumpy, Midwestern stereotype, leaves his German shrew-wife, then vacillates back and forth pointlessly.

Bonus: a foreigner selling artisanal pickles to Whole Foods for distribution, and a child attending "Eurythmics" class. I honestly can't tell if this is all an elaborate trolling effort.

The only humor in this "comedy" are a few bitter lines from the comedians.

I would write more, but honestly, there's nothing more to say. It's an almost empty film. My interest in the actors was the only thing compelling me to watch.