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Maggie’s Plan

Michael Andre whets our appetite about Rebecca Miller’s new film "Maggie's Plan." – Artblog editor

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For some weeks I’ve been pissing around trying to write up “Women, Art and Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise” at the Princeton Museum. I’ve found it difficult. I can’t find a handle. Then last night I saw the movie “Maggie’s Plan” and wrote this paragraph.

Greta Gerwig Maggies Plan
Greta Gerwig as Maggie. Photo by Jon Pack, Hall Monitor, Inc., Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

“Maggie’s Plan” is a pleasant, intriguing film. Greta Gerwig stars as the Greta Gerwig we met in “Frances Ha.” But the other two actors, Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore, play abstruse academics as successful writers. The film postulates that their characters are more intelligent than the Gerwig character. Moore with her Danish accent might be based on writer/director Rebecca Miller’s mother Inge Morath. Hawke might be said to resemble her father Arthur Miller. Who, ergo, is Greta Gerwig but–Marilyn Monroe? She’s no Greta Garbo. The film’s a screwball comedy that makes me speculate. And of course Miller is married to–Daniel Day-Lewis.

Maggie’s Plan is currently playing at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, the Ambler Theater and the Ritz 5.

Once upon a time Michael Andre was a Canadian New York poet. “Canada takes over the New York School,” as Robert Creeley put it. Then in October 2008 Michael moved to Philadelphia. The Phillies immediately won the World Series and Obama was miraculously elected president. Michael writes for the Philly Artblog. Frightened by the Rise of Trumpism he has, alas, temporarily retreated to Princeton.

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