Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang
God must chuckle over how we
mortals keep screwing up our own lives.
We fret, we fuss; we second-guess
ourselves; we concoct absurdly elaborate schemes designed to accomplish this or
that, but which invariably fail; we rebound with even more ludicrous
counter-schemes.
 |
| When Maggie (Greta Gerwig, left) realizes that she has made a mistake by marrying John, she concocts an unlikely scheme to re-unite him with ex-wife Georgette (Julianne Moore). That's assuming, of course, that Georgette even wants him back... |
If we’d simply relax and get out
of our own way, letting nature take its course, we’d likely be much more
pleased with the results.
Writer/director Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan has great fun with this
notion. The indie filmmaker’s endearing romantic comedy — based on a story by
Karen Rinaldi — also is another fine showcase for steadily rising star Greta
Gerwig. The angst-riddled characters and New York setting make comparisons to
Woody Allen inevitable, although Miller’s focus is female-centric; she’s also
better — more organic — at skewering the pretentious affectations that make her
characters so frequently sound like recently arrived visitors from Jupiter.
I’ve often felt that Allen’s
gibes at Manhattan pomposity are made at the expense of his characters; the tone feels snooty. Miller, in great
contrast, clearly sympathizes with her protagonists, even as she exposes their narcissism;
it feels more like Miller is ruefully shaking her head, hoping that we’ll learn
by this gentler — but still quite funny — example.
Maggie Hardin (Gerwig) wants to
have a baby. Desperately. But she’s
unwilling to take the conventional approach, given a track record of
relationships that have lasted no more than six months. Artificial insemination
therefore seems the best route, and Maggie has selected a slightly off-kilter,
former college acquaintance (Travis Fimmel, as Guy) who abandoned a mathematics
degree in favor of becoming a pickle entrepreneur.
Despite the decision having been
made, Maggie remains conflicted. She shares her doubts with a personal Greek
chorus: longtime best friend Tony (Bill Hader) and his wife, Felicia (Maya
Rudolph). He’s a lawyer; she and Maggie are work colleagues at The New School,
in Greenwich Village. Although Tony and Felicia are a bit crusty with each
other, theirs is a loving and successful relationship, and they also care
deeply about Maggie ... even if they frequently fail to understand her.
Maggie’s chance encounter with
New School part-time teacher John Harding (Ethan Hawke) leads to a fast
friendship. They spark: He’s a frustrated debut novelist trying to find his
voice; she’s an eager and sympathetic reader. The bond deepens, and that’s a
problem; John is married to Georgette (Julianne Moore), and they have two
children.
John and Georgette have a
complicated dynamic, both having overdosed on university degrees while skipping
the day that common sense was passed out. She’s a hyper-competitive,
self-absorbed Danish academic; he’s a “ficto-critical anthropologist” who
teaches classes with unlikely titles such as “Masks in the Modern Family, from
Victorian Times to the Present” and “Fictocritical Perspectives of Family
Dynamics.”
If you get a sense that Miller is
poking fun at stuffy academics, you’re absolutely correct. In a film laden with
tart one-liners and droll conversations, nothing is funnier than a panel — unsuccessfully
kept in check by a helpless moderator (Wallace Shawn, in a hilariously
flustered cameo) — that finds John and Georgette arguing two sides of some
deranged scholarly thesis.
Trouble is, John can’t control
his own family dynamic. Georgette is
perfectly content, since she rules the roost. But John is unhappy, and
therefore ripe for the spontaneous affair that explodes with Maggie.
Two years later, Maggie and John
are married, with an adorable toddler daughter (Lily, played to cute-as-a-bug
perfection by little Ida Rohatyn). Georgette, divorced and bitter, has mined
the experience in a tell-all book. John’s novel, in contrast, keeps getting
longer, the finish line receding at an even faster rate.
And Maggie, bless her, begins to
realize that John is taking advantage of her good nature. Worse yet, he spends
hours — every day — chatting with Georgette on the phone. He doesn’t mean
anything by it, he insists; after all, they’re still co-parenting two growing
children.
Maggie therefore conspires to
bump into Georgette at a book-signing, acting on a half-baked notion: Would it
be possible to maneuver John and Georgette into reuniting?
This plot is vintage Hollywood
screwball comedy; we’ve seen it done by the likes of Cary Grant and Irene
Dunne, in classics such as 1937’s The
Awful Truth. But Miller’s execution is rigorously earthy and contemporary,
up to and including Maggie’s wincingly explicit efforts to, ah, maneuver a
plastic syringe filled with ejaculate: a sequence that is simultaneously funny,
gross and embarrassing. (Gerwig is such
a good sport!)
It has been quite entertaining to
watch Gerwig develop her endearingly flustered, conflicted and (gently)
victimized persona through a series of films: Lola Versus, Frances Ha
and Mistress America. She finally
nails it here, giving Maggie all the best and most interesting character tics
of the women in those earlier films, while downplaying the elements that didn’t
quite work. (I’m most grateful for the fact that she abandoned the raging
alcoholism that was so unappealing; Maggie drinks nothing more than an
occasional glass of wine.)
Additionally, Gerwig is simply
fun to observe; she has a way with quirky expressions and double-takes, all of
which feel absolutely natural, while serving as excellent shorthand cues to her
characters. Watch how she silently catches herself and tosses her head, during
one of Maggie’s early conversations with John; it’s so spontaneous, so natural,
that it transcends acting.
Moore, equally drawn to eccentric
characters, is a hoot as Georgette. The woman is a pretentious snot to begin
with, and it’s even funnier with Moore’s affected Danish accent; it feels like
she’s channeling Greta Garbo, but of course Georgette doesn’t want to be left alone. That’s what makes her sympathetic,
despite such a chilly, prickly exterior; Georgette has a softer side, which
Moore displays subtly, but just enough.
It’s also amusing that the Danish
Georgette is utterly hapless in winter settings, whether attempting to ice
skate or hike through deep snow.
Hawke has a harder job, since
John’s indecisive nature makes him somewhat unlikable. He does take advantage; we forgive this only because his
self-absorption is unconscious and instinctive, rather than the result of
malice. In a cast laden with characters who simply don’t know themselves very
well, he’s definitely the most clueless. Hawke gets credit for making John even
faintly sympathetic, but he’s far from warm and fuzzy.
Hader and Rudolph, both masters
of comic timing, are a hoot. Miller wisely uses them sparingly, otherwise
they’d easily overwhelm the story. Fimmel, finally, is equally amusing as the
scruffy Guy, who always seems to be one response ahead (or behind) in a given
conversation.
The locations are rigorously New
York, and production designer Alexandra Schaller has a lot of fun with the
various sets. Maggie’s initial studio apartment is particularly amusing: a
central room just large enough for a bed, with piles of books stacked against
the walls, and a closet-sized kitchen and bathroom. (With most people, I’d
regard so many books as a pretentious decoration ... but I’m certain Maggie has
read them all.)
Maggie’s Plan isn’t for all tastes; I suspect
its charms will be lost in great swaths of the American heartland. But as an
alternative to summer’s brainless, noisy popcorn flicks, it’s just what the
doctor ordered.
Even if the doctor sounds, and
behaves, a bit like Woody Allen.
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