Directors: Scott McGhee and David Siegel
Cast: Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan, Onata Aprile, Joanna Vanderham, Alexander Skarsgård
Release Date: 23rd August 2013
As the credits appear, we observe a title — “Based on a novel by Henry James’ — that jars with the utterly contemporary feeling evoked by an opening sequence set in a modern New York apartment as a pizza delivery boy flirts with an au pair and parents squabble in the background. For much of its running time, What Maisie Knew captivates as a study of a dysfunctional relationship seen from the perspective of Maisie (Onata Aprile), a preschool child. As Maisie’s art-dealer father (Steve Coogan) shacks up with her former au pair (Joanna Vanderham), Maisie’s rockstar mother (Julianne Moore) just as opportunistically marries a slacker barman (Alexander Skarsgård) in a staggeringly misguided attempt to overcome doubts about her ability to provide a stable home for her daughter. Maisie becomes lost between the cracks, with only the unfortunate new partners of her parents worrying about her welfare.
Beautiful cinematography captures Maisie’s engagement with the world, while we marvel at how the core of a story written over a century ago can still resonate so well in a wholly different context. Strong performances by Moore and Coogan infuse an uncomfortable realism into the hostility between the former lovers. The unaffected performance of little Onata Aprile, who seems credibly disengaged from her parents’ dispute, enhances the sense of naturalism that makes the early scenes so convincing. Over time, however, we are forced to reconsider the Victorian origins of this tale as melodrama asserts itself to jarring effect. The story forces a relationship between the young, beautiful barman and au pair, who are offered as ideal, caring adoptive parents for Maisie. For all of its visual poise and narrative restraint, the film succumbs to the irredeemable implausibility of the happiest of happy endings. Despite this fatal lapse, directors Scott McGhee and David Siegel deserve much credit for this effort.
