Six year old Maisie’s parents are going through a bitter divorce. Her aging rockstar mother (Julianne Moore) is grasping to keep her career together and her self absorbed art dealer father (Steve Coogan) is spending more and more time overseas.
What Maisie Knew. (David Siegal & Scott McGehee)
Six year old Maisie’s parents are going through a bitter divorce. Her aging rockstar mother (Julianne Moore) is grasping to keep her career together and her self absorbed art dealer father (Steve Coogan) is spending more and more time overseas. They both want custody of Maisie (Onata Aprile) and believe they are the best parent, better suited to provide for her. But it is left up to Lincoln,her mother’s younger bartender boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgard) and Margo (Joanna Vanderham) the nanny turned stepmother to care for Maisie.
What Maisie Knew is an uncomfortable watch at times, Moore’s Susanna is brillantly self obsessed and awful while Coogan’s Beale matches this with his arrogance. But the film isn’t about them, it is about how a six year old girl views the confusing and unstable world around her and the adults that are in her life. The story itself is simple and doesn’t move very far but the characters and acting carry where the story line lacks. And there are some darkly humorous moments. I hadn’t seen Skarsgard as anything other than the smouldering vampire Eric Northman in the TV series True Blood but he brings a softness and humility to Lincoln. And newcomer Vanderham’s gentle Margo is a wonderful contrast to Moore’s selfish Susanna. Onata Aprile delivers a charming performance for such a young actor. It can be a risk to centre a movie around a child but Aprile is captivating and the viewer is truly shown the world through Maisie’s eyes.
In cinemas September 12.
Helen King
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