Maudie

I do NOT understand how it is possible that Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke went completely unnoticed by the Academy. It truly boggles my mind. All of the other reviews pretty much summed up my feelings for this film and the performances. I'm left speechless that NO NOMINATIONS WERE GIVEN!! How in the world did such incredible acting performances get unrecognized? Sally Hawkins was simply superb. Ethan Hawke was amazing. Maybe his best performance yet. This movie is a gem. Definite must-see. And you too, will be scratching your head as to WHY these amazing actors didn't get even the slightest nod. Wow.

It's a long time since I've seen a film as affecting as this (principally because it isn't emotionally manipulative, which I always resent). Instead it just tells a simple tale of simple folk living in simple times, between whom love eventually blossoms against the odds. It's also a sobering reminder of how hard times were in the early 20th century in rural communities, where gossip and malice were endemic, people worked their fingers to the bone and there was no room for sentimentality. That very unsentimental ethos permeates the film, though of course in many cases it tips over into cruelty, and the cruelty Maudie suffers is at times unbearable. Yet for those tempted to walk out, stick with it because her life improves and she evens starts to smile a bit, once the art therapy kicks in. Take a box of Kleenex, expect to feel humbled (and never to complain again about your affluent neuroses). Beyond that, both leads (Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke) are great, and the photography of Newfoundland & Nova Scotia is beautiful, capturing the seascapes and landscapes in the brilliant light.

What a good film. And most impressive is that it is actually based on a true story (sorry, I haven't done my research before the film, so when the documentary bits came at the end, I was like No way, that was actually for real!). I am not sure it can really be called a "feel good" movie - life wasn't that easy for her. But it will certainly warm your heart with a big and powerful message that we don't really need much to be happy.

Sally Hawkins was absolutely great. With that shy but ready smile and wondering eyes. Although I felt kind of sorry for the way they portrayed her husband. Not sure if he was as brute in real life as they made him. Not that I know, of course, but it felt too much (and he looked smiley enough in the documentary bits). Also, I'd say the editing was not as smooth as it could have been so felt rather amateurish overall, but maybe that was intentional.

There is quote by Kurt Vonnegut that comes to mind when I think of Maudie, the latest film based on the real life and times of an artist. "Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." That may sound like a backhanded compliment but if Maud Lewis was portrayed accurately in the film, I doubt she'll mind. To her painting wasn't a source of ego or pride. It was something she just did - to make herself happy - and if it made others happy all the better.

The film picks up with Maudie, played with understated sensitivity by Sally Hawkins, as she struggles and fails to earn the respect of her family. Despite her severe arthritis, Maudie answers an advert for a live-in maid and runs away. She moves in with and eventually marries the crotchety Everett Lewis (Hawke), a fishmonger who manages to put on a grim smile but once over the film's 40+ year time span. After a time living in Everett's dimly lit squalor, Maudie relights her passion for painting using abandoned cork board and the walls of her new home to paint continuously.

The true-life Maudie was eventually considered Canada's most popular and prolific folk artist; though one could hardly tell given the solitude that follows Maudie throughout her life. In the film, she remains isolated, largely due to her debilitating arthritis and painful shyness around strangers. There's one awkward scene early on where Maud struggles to shuffle out of a doorway and stick her head out long enough to compliment a woman's shoes. In that moment we realize her deep desire to be both accepted and left alone.

The film aptly compliment's the artist's own frailties and unconventionality with a strikingly brittle and unconventional love story. Maud's warmth towards Everett is sincere and unconditional. She sees in him, a beautiful person - an outcast like her who has been made wild by the cruelties of life but nevertheless deserves her love. As open as Maudie is to the inner-beauties of a warm sunset, Everett remains as cold and brutal as a winter storm. Yet every time he "puts a foot down," he wordlessly capitulates. He grumbles and erupts in objectively despicable behavior but Maud always seems to convince him that he's capable of love and being loved.

The film continues down this path of bittersweet co-dependence and as the relationship develops, we see the results of Maud's patience and virtue. Thanks to the remarkably assured cinematography of Guy Godfree, the film crackles with natural beauty and warmth of a cozy hearth. There are some truly breathtaking natural vistas on display here, which despite their expanse manage to feel intimate and idyllic.

As a film Maudie is certainly within the ranks of Mr. Turner (2014), My Left Foot (1989) and Lust for Life (1956). Much like those films, Maudie centers on the life of a tortured artist whose personal story tells something truly meaningful about the human condition. It also has a truly award-worthy performance by Sally Hawkins who is at this point in a class of her own.

Although shot in Canada, and although it is about a Canadian, I don't like affixing the term Canadiana to it. It is a Universal movie about the indomitable spirit that some people possess even when faced with horrendous turns of fate. Sally Hawkins is incredibly good as Maud and Ethan Hawke does a superb job of playing Everett Lewis. Hawkins has the accents , the movements, the wry smile and the light that just won't stop shining. Hawke's performance is very nuanced: his character was an emotional cripple and he was violent, but we also know how much he loved and admired his wife. It was a time when dirt poor men asked for nothing, did whatever they must to survive and didn't allow expression of feelings in their lives. Many reviewers have called him "vile", but he could have been a miner, for example, anywhere in the world as easily as a fish seller in Nova Scotia in 1930. I think Ethan Hawke did an amazing job of capturing that man. It has great cinematography, excellent score and a minimalist script that allows, through actual superb acting, to get to know a pair of characters in a movie like never before. Don't miss this one!!