Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller, 2015)
Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan (2015) seems designed to subvert the expected structure of a typical rom-com. At the beginning of the film, the eponymous protagonist (Greta Gerwig) decides to act on her desire to start a family by getting pregnant with the assistance of a sperm donor. The film drops this potentially empowering plotline almost immediately as Maggie falls for John (Ethan Hawke), an unhappily married anthropologist-turned-writer in the middle of penning his first novel. John is married to Georgette (Julianne Moore), a brilliant academic so “frigid” (according to her husband) that the film constantly costumes her in plush faux fur from head to toe. The film focuses on the turbulent lives of these three characters as the two women haphazardly fall in and out of love with the equally fickle John.
The film sprints along at a breakneck pace, making it hard for the spectator to keep track of the ever-changing attractions and heartbreaks. Months disappear into illustrative montages; years pass between cuts. These disruptions in the plot’s chronology leave the spectator bewildered and adrift in the jerky narrative flow. To remedy this confusion the film tells rather than shows the relationships among Maggie, John, and Georgette. Instead of the audience falling in love alongside the characters on screen, we have to take their word for it through clunky lines of dialogue that explicitly state where the characters stand at any given moment.
Instead of telling a tale of modern romance, Maggie’s Plan reestablishes antiquated gender hierarchies that place men in control. Early in the film, Maggie’s would-be sperm donor—a school acquaintance from her past—offers to give his donation the “old-fashioned way.” During a later scene, John bursts into Maggie’s apartment, interrupting her in the middle of carrying out her initial plan to become a mother. After proclaiming his love for Maggie, John immediately falls to his knees and brings his hands to the long row of buttons on her nightgown without first confirming her reciprocal affection. Within the film these scenes are presented as comical. At my screening of the film, the large theater filled with laughter, based partially on the sheer discomfort of the awkward scenarios. Yet this attempt at humor glosses over the absence of consent and communication in the supposedly contemporary romantic interactions.
Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller, 2015)
The film does not deliver on its implied promise to tell the story of a capable female character in control of her own destiny. Instead, Maggie is pushed around by men and her attempts at altering her life morph into manipulative schemes. After Maggie’s and Georgette’s wildest plot falls apart, the film briefly dangles the possibility of truly celebrating a nontraditional family. With John (temporarily) out of the picture, Maggie and Georgette are left to raise their respective children together. But this arrangement, too, falls away as an unlikely reunion reasserts the heteronormative balance of the film. These problematic dimensions of Maggie’s Plan reinforce conventions that, in my mind, are far worse than the classic plot points that the film sets out to challenge.
Author Biography
Dominique Silverman is a senior English-Film Studies major and gender studies minor at Hendrix College. In addition to film she enjoys podcasts, cross stitching, and working towards dismantling patriarchal structures.
Mentor Biography
Kristi McKim is an Associate Professor of English and Chair of Film Studies at Hendrix College, where she was awarded the Charles S. and Lucile Esmon Shivley Odyssey Professorship, honored as the 2014-15 United Methodist Exemplary Professor, and nominated for the CASE U.S. Professors of the Year Award. Her publications include the books Love in the Time of Cinema (2011) and Cinema as Weather: Stylistic Screens and Atmospheric Change (2013), in addition to pieces in Camera Obscura, Studies in French Cinema, Senses of Cinema, Film International, The Cine-Files, and Film-Philosophy.
Department Overview
Hendrix College offers a major in English with an emphasis in Film Studies and a minor in Film Studies. This growing program within an intimate and rigorous liberal arts college environment includes a variety of courses in the history and theory of film and media, alongside co-curricular experiences (such as this trip to the New York Film Festival) generously made possible through the Hendrix-Odyssey Program. Extracurricular film-related groups include Hendrix Film Society and Hendrix Filmmakers.
Film Details
Maggie’s Plan (2015)
USA
Director Rebecca Miller
Runtime 98 minutes
Follow this link to read the introduction to this set of reviews: https://www.filmmattersmagazine.com/2016/05/21/2015-new-york-film-festival-introduction/
