Review of Maggie (2015) by Adpirtle — 18 Jun 2015

I liked this film, and I really wish I could give it a higher score.

The script is terrific, exploring the overdone zombie genre uniquely as a heart-wrenching family drama. The film focuses on both a father's anguish at having to choose the ultimate fate of his terminally ill daughter, as well as the young girl's struggle to face her impending death on her own terms.

The performances are terrific, surprisingly, since I don't usually associate Arnold Schwarzenegger with art-house acting showcases like this. The aging action hero does as good a job as anyone has a right to expect him to, and his face is well-suited for the somber material. Abigail Breslin outshines him, of course, with an amazing performance assisted in no small part by a top-notch makeup department.

Unfortunately it's Director Henry Hobson, making his feature film debut, who keeps the movie from being everything it should have been. With his shaky, handheld shots and dingy orange-gray palette he's obviously trying to thread the needle between artsy and scary, but he doesn't pull either off particularly well. To be perfectly frank, sometimes I have no idea what he's aiming the camera at.

If you can stand the uneven quality of the direction, and you love both zombie films and melancholic character pieces, this is a must-watch. Otherwise, I'd wait until it pops up on Netflix.