Maggie's Plan

New Yorker Maggie Hardin (Greta Gerwig) wants to have a baby. Her relationships never last more than six months except her college romance with best friend Tony (Bill Hader) but that doesn't count. She decides to get sperm from college acquaintance, pickle entrepreneur Guy Childers. She works at an art school with Tony's wife Felicia (Maya Rudolph) and John Harding (Ethan Hawke). Maggie and John meet over a paycheck mixup and start a relationship over a novel he's trying to write. He's unhappily married to Columbia professor Georgette (Julianne Moore) with two kids.

The appeal of this movie depends a lot on one's appreciation of Gerwig's flighty, quirky persona. It's a rom-com where the romance is not the most likable. Harding starts off poorly and I never find him a good match for Maggie. Even the pickle guy is better although Tony could be the best if there is no Felicia. I'm actually glad at the turn in the second half of the movie and it becomes an anti-rom-com. The funniest relationship is between Maggie and Georgette. The movie could do with more of them together.

The eternal triangle and the romantic comedy have been soulmates forever but how many ways you can tell the same old love story? The era of female empowerment and emotional recycling is upon us, so it is refreshing to see Maggie's Plan (2016) take an old story formula and update it with offbeat humour centred on modern marriage. Contemporary lifestyle choices such as wanting a baby but not a man or handing a used lover back to a former owner are just some of the scenarios played out in this intelligent and delightful rom-rom.

The simple triangular plot pivots on independent-minded Maggie (Greta Gerwig), an over-controller who loves falling in love but cannot keep a relationship longer than six months. Wanting a baby without the strings, she arranges for a sperm donor just as she meets John (Ethan Hawke), an insecure academic who is emasculated by the stellar career of his imperious wife Georgette (Julianne Moore). John's need for constant mothering is no longer fulfilled by the dynamic Georgette, so Maggie and John inevitably pair up and one corner of the triangle disappears. Three years later, Maggie is over the needy John and his permanently incomplete 'great novel' so she hatches a plan to reunite John with Georgette. A clever script laced with tangled textual barbs like "ficto-critical anthropology" (Google it) and one-liners like "nobody unpacks commodity fetishism like you do" are rapid-fire and hilarious send-ups of the pretentious world of academe. It is at this level that the film shines brightest: not with belly laughs or madcap comedy, but through a whimsical lens focused on the world of intelligent people who think they control the ebbs and flows of the uncontrollable.

The acting performances are all top-shelf. Julianne Moore plays the understated dominatrix with a hilarious deadpan Danish accent, and Ethan Hawke is perfect as the hapless male out-powered by the females in his life. The standout performance is Greta Gerwig whose big doe-eyed innocence and naivety about the ways of the world make her scheming utterly forgivable. While the story has a predictable narrative arc, the dialogue is richly satirical, funny and totally female-centered. It is also an entertaining post-feminist comedy about sex and marriage which imagines a future where males are only needed for sperm and are then recycled amongst whoever will tolerate their innate weaknesses.

I think I got tricked into watching this movie by looking at the cast. There are undeniably good actors and actresses in this movie but that doesn't mean a certainty for success. On the contrary, it turned out to be a borefest. I couldn't wait for the end credits to appear. As for the comedy level I had two or three small grins, so nothing that will stay memorable for the rest of my life, like some other good comedies sometimes do. If you like endless debating about something dramatic like couples arguing about nothing then you might enjoy this. I can't believe I wasted my time with this one as it was clearly going to be really boring after only five minutes.

Greta Gerwig as "Maggie" (an independent woman) bakes up a plan to become a single mother and in the process 'the plan' works but then backfires and puts her into a situation 'the plan' did not include - marriage.

Gerwig gives a charming performance as Maggie steering a course through a relationship with a overly analytical writer once divorced husband, raising her three year old child, working her job as an instructor in a local college, and realizing her husband is still in love with his first wife! Maggie is in a pickle so she devises another plan!

The setting is the New York City intellectual society living in row houses and meeting in cafe's to socialize. The cast includes Bill Hader, Ethan Hawke, Maya Rudolph, Julianne Moore, Wallace Shawn. This is a simple 'slice of life' type story about modern people looking for and finding happiness and direction in their life. It's probably a film more appreciated by a viewer that likes a romantic flavor in a story that looks into the feelings and emotion in the human spirit.

This is a cheerful light story that includes just a touch of sorrow mixed into a picture of mostly happy people getting on with life. And don't forget the pickles!

A narcissistic man-child falls for a frumpy, Midwestern stereotype, leaves his German shrew-wife, then vacillates back and forth pointlessly.

Bonus: a foreigner selling artisanal pickles to Whole Foods for distribution, and a child attending "Eurythmics" class. I honestly can't tell if this is all an elaborate trolling effort.

The only humor in this "comedy" are a few bitter lines from the comedians.

I would write more, but honestly, there's nothing more to say. It's an almost empty film. My interest in the actors was the only thing compelling me to watch.