A movie that might have been better served if it had been released in the late fall instead of the spring, the biographical drama “Maudie” still managed to rustle up interest beyond its target art-house demographic, and bank enough praise and accolades to make it on to multiple year-end Top 10 lists. It was my number seven choice for 2017.
A regular on the indie circuit and English stages since the late 1990s, the British-born Sally Hawkins stars as Maud Lewis, a Canadian folk artist afflicted with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis who has led a hard and troubled life, yet never let her condition get the best of her. Her paintings are simple, yet upbeat and emotionally resonant.
Show, Don’t Tell
It helps that first time feature director Aisling Walsh takes the same approach as her leading lady, providing extended long shots of the unforgiving Nova Scotia landscape, while screenwriter Sherry White prefers description over dialogue. If you’re looking for a lot of talk and broad performances, this is not the movie for you.
Knuckle-Dragger
The bulk of the first act has Maud and Everett doing a figurative Kabuki-style song and dance, where she does everything right, he thinks it’s all wrong, but he still keeps her around. Most people will recognize Everett as a mouth-breathing misanthrope. He is a product of his time and environment but, at times, it’s (almost) easy to forgive his frequent knuckle-dragging behavior. Given few if any options, Maud puts up with him, but only to a point, and this is the first glimpse we get of a woman with a unique artistic vision and bending, but not breaking, emotional backbone.
Rarely playing a heavy, Mr. Hawke deserves immense credit for doing so here and not looking for an out or any audience sympathy. Not quite a villain (that would be Charles), Mr. Hawke’s Everett is still a grating foil with a misplaced air of superiority, entitlement, Cro-Magnon ideas of male-female relationships and, eventually, seething jealousy regarding the praise heaped upon Maud.
Not Easy
“Maudie” isn’t an easy movie to watch. The sympathetic lead is put through the wringer on a multitude of fronts and never afforded release or even an escape hatch. What Ms. Lewis went through would crush most of us.
As with most “based on real events” films, “Maudie” alters some facts, changes the chronology of others, and ignores some completely. For instance, Everett’s ultimate fate is never revealed, which was probably a good thing once you find out what eventually happened to him.
Ms. Lewis was as pure a human as any of us could ever know. If your day isn’t going well because a barista got your coffee order wrong or you waited too long in line at the grocery store, step back, take stock, and thank your maker you weren’t tested like Ms. Lewis. You’d likely fold like a deck chair.
