Cinematography:
Giles NuttgensComposer:
Nick UrataCast:
Julianne Moore, Alexander Skarsgård, Onata Aprile, Steve Coogan, Joanna Vanderham, Diana Garcia, Trevor Long, Nadia Gan, Valentine Aprile, Nate Lang (more)Plots(1)
The story of a captivating little girl's struggle for grace in the midst of her parents' bitter custody battle. Told through the eyes of the title's heroine, Maisie navigates this ever-widening turmoil with a six-year-old's innocence, charm and generosity of spirit. An aging rock star and a contemporary art dealer - Susanna and Beale are too self-involved even to notice their neglect and inadequacy as parents; their fight for Maisie is just another battle in an epic war of personalities. As they raise the stakes by taking on inappropriate new partners, the ex-nanny Margo and the much younger bartender Lincoln, the shuffling of Maisie from household to household becomes more and more callous, the consequences more and more troubling. Always watchful, however, Maisie begins to understand that the path through this morass of adult childishness and selfish blindness will have to be of her own making. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (3)
It can’t be easy to convey such a difficult topic. But the authors have handled it perfectly. The story is very strong, very heavy, but at the same time, it reflects the reality of the modern era, aka the reality where a baby is born to two young parents but they don’t have time for it, they don’t have time for one another and they try to compensate for it with their careers which might be great, but they don’t last forever. Also, Onata Aprile was the best thing that has happened to this movie. That girl was absolutely amazing. Throughout the movie, I was sad but also happy for her; sad about the way that this world can treat children, happy about the good people still left in this world. And all she had to do was a single look in her eyes, and she was saying it all. This movie’s done it – it has exhausted me emotionally.
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In the thoroughly modern drama What Maisie Knew, starring such popular actors as Julianne Moore and Alexander Skarsgård, few would have expected an adaptation of Henry James' 1897 novel of the same name. The issue of divorce and its impact on the child has not changed much since then and that is why it seems so topical. A similar film with the same sensitivity, depicting a little protagonist, was made in the Czech Republic and was called Who's Afraid of the Wolf.
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As a childless woman, I have no right to judge parents – how they care for their children, how they raise them, what they say to them and what they confide in them. But no one can tell me that there aren’t people who shouldn't have children at all. The way both parents drag their daughter into their relationship, the way they badmouth each other in front of her, the way they confide things that the child shouldn't hear, that really made me sick, not to mention their total irresponsibility – the way they shuffle little Maisie between them and how they put all the responsibility on their new partners. In the end, it turns out that these two, strangers in a way (in the sense that they are not real family), the former nanny and the young bartender, are much better parents for Maisie than the biological ones. In general, it's all well acted, but it's clear that the star of the screen is little Onata Aprile, whom everyone would want as a daughter. She is so adorable, intelligent, funny, sensitive, you just hope she will end up in good hands; in the hands of people who will love her more than themselves, and who will give her the love she deserves.
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