Review of Maggie's Plan (2016) by Foxgrove — 14 Jul 2016

The silly season is not lifted one iota by this critically lauded, but extremely overrated comedy- drama. Comparisons can be made to a bad Woody Allen outing in so much as the film is set in New York and has a very verbose script, but similarities end there.

Whereas Allen at his best employs great actors in good stories this verbiage finally adds up to nothing more than pretentious drivel. Despite a good start with early scenes promising an Art house level of sophisticated articulation, it’s not long before the eyes glaze over, the ears tune out and one is left to endure a bunch of uninteresting characters espousing little more than blah, blah, blah.

All three leads are not at their best. Greta Gerwig is still Greta who? Julianne Moore continues to lose her edge in yet another downward spiral performance and even Ethan Hawke is the weakest he’s been for years.

In fact, it is the supporting turn of Bill Hader that impresses most as Gerwig’s ‘say it as it is’ best friend. Ultimately the film is neither funny nor dramatic enough to make one care about any of these tiresome characters and their predicaments are totally uninvolving.

As for the jolly incidental music, this is just another irritating aspect of a small and insignificantly forgettable film.