EIFF 2016: Maggie's Plan

Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore star in Rebecca Miller's offbeat romantic comedy

Film Review by Michelle Devereaux | 18 Jun 2016
Film title: Maggie' Plan
Director: Rebecca Miller
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Travis Fimmel, Julianne Moore
Release date: 6 Jul
Certificate: 15

Maggie’s Plan is one of those New York-set rom-coms where neurotic bourgie types fret over crumbling marriages in tasteful yet funky rooms with books by Carl Jung placed under lamps for height. But director Rebecca Miller has a mildly devious plan of her own: to subvert much that’s wrong with the icky sub-Woody Allen tropes often infecting the genre.

Greta Gerwig stars as Maggie, aka the now-official Greta Gerwig role of slightly frazzled, sharp yet emotionally compromised woman-child who has the best of intentions but messes up badly. Her own plan involves getting current wannabe-novelist husband John (Ethan Hawke) back with his ex-wife Georgette (Julianne Moore, hilariously brittle as a Danish academic). Complicating matters considerably, John actually left Georgette for Maggie.

The film’s most charming surprise is the peculiar friendship that develops between the two female romantic sometimes-rivals; Moore and Gerwig have a surprising chemistry in polar opposite roles. Unfortunately their screwball hijinks can’t totally redeem Maggie’s Plan from being an amusing and sweet, if sometimes cloying, trifle about smart people acting dumb.

Maggie's Plan screens at Filmhouse, 18 Jun, 8.55pm & 19 Jun, 8.35pm

Maggie's Plan is released across the UK by Sony 6 Jul