Movie Review: "Maudie"

"Maudie": A-.  When the Canadian film Maudie hit town almost two months ago, there was not much buzz about it.  Its stars, Ethan Hawke and Sally Hawkins, are veteran actors, but not the marquee names which guarantee box office success.  The film was invited to play in a handful of well-regarded festivals, including Toronto and Telluride, but took top honors only in Vancouver; maybe not that big a shock given the geography of the pertinent parties.

Be that as it may, Maudie has turned out to be one of the surprises of this summer, at least on the Twin Cities scene.  It has been playing at the Edina Theater since late June, with no short-term end in sight.  Although the film was not heavily promoted here, its popularity may be attributable to word-of-mouth and repeat paying customers.  Minnesota movie goers might also relate to the Nova Scotia setting as well; beautiful for three seasons of the year, and miserably cold and snowy for much of the fourth.

The film, based on the true story of Maud Lewis, is a fascinating tale of how one woman overcame imposing odds and downright cruelty to become a successful artist and appreciated wife.  When the story opens, Maud (Hawkins) learns that her heartless, scheming brother Charles (Zachary Bennett) has sold the house which once belong to their deceased mother.  He coldly tells Maud that he had the right to do so, since their mother bequeathed the house to him alone.  Maud, who seems like a gentle, happy soul in spite of her severely arthritic condition, gets no sympathy from her cold-hearted Aunt Ida (Gabrielle Rose) with whom she lives.  Shortly thereafter, Maudie determines to change her living conditions and get out from under the thumb of Ida.

Hawke, as Everett Lewis, makes one of the great screen entrances I can remember witnessing in the last decade.  Everett is a gruff fish monger who lives like a hermit in a small shack on the outskirts of the seaside village, Marshalltown.  The shack is in total disrepair, and the interior has probably never seen a broom or a mop.  Everett, finally deciding he needs a housekeeper, walks into the general store to post a notice for a cleaning woman.  Since he is illiterate, he prevails upon the shopkeeper to write the notice to be tacked onto the store's bulletin board.  Everett's frustration over being unable to come up with the exact wording for the notice card causes him to go briefly ballistic.  His profane tantrum had me laughing out loud.

At the same time, Maud is in the shop but unseen by Everett.  When he exits she plucks the card off the board and the next day shows up at Everett's shack to apply for the position.  And thus begins the relationship between the sweet but crippled Maud and the stern humorless Everett.  The evolution of that connection is the heart of the movie.

The movie is superb on so many levels, starting with the writing and the acting.  There are not many scripts calling for the subtle change and development of even one character, but Maudie, written by Canadian Sherry White, features two of them.  Most obviously, Everett starts out barely tolerating Maud's presence in his cabin, even though he is the one who hired her.  He doesn't want her to move any of his "stuff," which is next to impossible since it's scattered all over the small space.  He looks upon her as more or less an obscenely underpaid slave, and a maltreated one at that.  He shows her no respect and is embarrassed to be seen with her in public.  In short, he is lewd, crude and rude.

Everett's behavior would drive most women away.  No job is worth putting up with that insolence and lack of dignity.  But thick-skinned Maud sticks it out, working hard and turning to painting as a distraction from Everett's abuse.  The two dynamic leads gradually, very gradually, come to a meeting of the minds, and more.  Every step of the way impressed me as being authentic and realistic, a tribute not only to the acting chops of Hawkins and Hawke, but to the mastery of Irish director Aisling Walsh.

I loved the performance of Hawkins.  Her character is physically weak, which causes other people in her life to equate that mistakenly with dullness.  In fact, she is quite intelligent, with a keen wit and the ability to read others accurately.  The proverbial wheels in her mind are always spinning.  I liked her from the moment she first appeared on screen, through to the end.  I have always thought of Hawke as underrated, perhaps because 1995's Before Sunrise in which he starred with Julie Delpe is one of my favorite romance stories.

The scenes of Marshalltown are gorgeously shot by cinematographer Guy Godfrey.  Walsh cleverly marks the passing years with periodic shots of the snow-covered terrain  The story is straightforward and simple but with interesting main characters.  Additionally, there is a new, almost mysterious arrival in the form of an elegantly dressed woman named Sandra (Kari Matchett, who faintly resembles Lisa Kudrow from Friends) from New York, and the revelation of a heart-wrenching secret.

Two of my granddaughters have shirts with a heart drawn on the front.  Inside the heart is the word "Loved."  I thought of those shirts while watching Maudie.  When Maud was living with her Aunt Ida, she was unloved.  Going to work for, and living with, Everett did not initially fill that void.  We viewers' hearts go out to her.  Maud's hope, basically but in her case seemingly unreachable, is one day to be loved.  The story of her quest to reach that point in her life is one of the best I have seen.