Maggie's Plan

On Sunday evening I went to the Bryn Mawr Film Institute to catch the latest Rebecca Miller flick. Since I really loved Personal Velocity and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and I also adore Greta Gerwig (I think that she is incredible and genuine and honest in each role she takes on) I had no doubts that I was in for an enjoyable couple hours. Arriving wicked early, I took a seat toward the back and noticed that the crowd at the theatre seemed to be primarily retirees who provided non-stop entertainment for this little eavesdropper. My favourite moment was from the three ladies to my left who after spending way too much time complaining about the lack of visitor parking at their complex (apparently all the caregivers take the spots up front - why this is a problem is beyond me), anyway the one 70-something-ish gal relayed the story of a friend of hers who was lounging on the lawn and enjoying the sunshine. I felt truly blessed to have actually heard her say the following: "A rabid raccoon was being chased by a swan......ripped her arm right open...." Clearly I was horrified that some poor elderly woman was out catchin' some 'rays when she suddenly is attacked and maimed, but hearing someone say "A rabid raccoon was being chased by a swan" made me feel like I was overhearing the dialogue from a David Lynch film. It was very "there was a fish in the percolator." But I digress....

As the film came to a close, most of the theatre-goers were giving blah reviews on their way up the aisle toward the exit. It always makes me a little sad when people do this, since I really liked the movie, I feel like they are criticising me and my opinion. Anyway, after my suspicion was confirmed that the singer at the lodge in Quebec was the delightful Ms. Kathleen Hanna, I dashed to the loo. There I ran into a lovely early 30s gal with cute wire-rimmed glasses and a pale green sundress with a grey cardigan who asked me, "What did ya think?" while she washed her hands. I told her I liked it, that I feel that Greta Gerwig always gives a solid performance and how I have liked Rebecca Miller's other films, to which she replied, "She's like the feminist Woody Allen." I thought that was such a cute thing to say, but really, I don't think Rebecca Miller's style of film-making is similar to anyone else on the planet. Maggie's Plan could have been so typical and cliché, but it wasn't. It didn't try to be anything other than the story of the lives of a handful of people. It wasn't trying to be campy or screwball or melodramatic or Indy-New-York. It was a good film and why try to make it into anything other than that? I will say that I loved Travis Fimmel's character (almost as much as I loved Maggie's apartment and all of her books) the most out of everything. He seemed perfect - passionate about his pickle business (how freakin' cute is that?), generous, charming, quirky and a bit eccentric. Plus that beard... I'd pick his odd-ness over Ethan Hawke's hum-drum-ness anyday. All in all it was the perfect end to my weekend and there were no cockroach sightings like the last time I was at that theatre. Thank gawd!

(photo kidnapped from ew)