This morning I watched Rebecca Miller's 2015 film Maggie's Plan. I definitely love it, but I did like it, so I'd suggest you check it out (right now it's available on the Criterion Channel in their Julianne Moore collection). It's described as a screwball comedy, and there are certainly aspects of that genre in it, but it also felt very much like one of those lesser Woody Allen movies where a series of educated white folks have enough income and time on their hands to fixate on their personal problems without actually dealing with anything particularly important (I think that sounds harsher than I intended). Greta Gerwig is charming in a very Greta Gerwig role (funny and clumsy and earnest and endearing), and you can't help thinking that it's a pity that she's so good at that role that she never is given the opportunity to play a role that displays how obviously bright she is. Ethan Hawke plays a very Ethan Hawke role, in that he's likeable and smart but obviously mildly fractured and incapable of finding a happy relationship or bringing happiness to a relationship. Julianne Moore is typically good. She's intelligent and emotionally distant and more than a bit fractured (which sounds like a typical Julianne Moore role), but she's also quite funny in the film. It's difficult to make the claim that such an accomplished actress isn't given great roles, but she's also often typecast in darker more emotionally complicated roles (which is hardly something to complain about, obviously). This reads like a negative reflection on the film, which I don't think I meant it to be, because I did like it. There are some great moments. When the Gerwig character says to Hawke that their relationship should have stopped at the level of an affair (he was married to the Moore character) and not led to them getting married she's definitely speaking some serious truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment