What Maisie Knew

2012

Action / Drama

17
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 86% · 111 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 80% · 10K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.4/10 10 28561 28.6K

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Plot summary

The story frames on 7-year-old Maisie, caught in a custody battle between her mother – a rock and roll icon – and her father. What Maisie Knew is an evocative portrayal of the chaos of adult life seen entirely from a child’s point of view.


Uploaded by: OTTO
July 24, 2013 at 07:55 PM

Director

Top cast

Julianne Moore as Susanna
Steve Coogan as Beale
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
759.34 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
R
23.976 fps
1 hr 39 min
Seeds ...
1.45 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
R
23.976 fps
1 hr 39 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by secondtake 8 / 10

Thoughtful, beautiful, amazingly constructed Henry James update

What Maisie Knew (2012)

A truly remarkable movie, filled with great acting, masterful editing and filming, and terrific writing. The basis of it all is the core here, a glimmering Henry James novel by the same title from over 100 years earlier. It's amazing how well the story holds up set in contemporary times, and changed in many necessary (and interesting) ways. What it keeps it going is the basic heartbreaking drama of a child tossed between two indifferent parents.

The mother might be seen as the main actor here, Julianne Moore, and this is the best I've ever seen her, I think. She gives a slightly fiery performance, and "slightly" is perfect, avoiding an overacting job suggested by her role as a slightly successful rock and roll star. She's terrifically awful and you come to hate her, appropriately.

The father (Steve Coogan) also puts in a sharp performance playing the lively, fun parent who is a selfish womanizer, hiding, sometimes, his flaws from his daughter. His relationship with the mother is not detailed very far because it is mostly one of distance and disdain. And mutual abuse.

The real star here is the girl, an utterly charming and beautifully effective actress, Onata, Aprile. She succeeds not by her delivery of great lines, but by her expressions. It's all because Henry James understood something delicate about children in these situations: they know what's going on and don't say it. And they also don't let it affect them because they simply can't afford to, or because they become hardened in some little ways, making them withdraw or act out. That Maisie maintains a delicious sweetness without playing the victim is quite remarkable, and Aprile is brilliant.

The secondary woman and man in the story are also terrific, and their roles grow as the movie grows. In fact, they become the sympathetic heart of things.

Pulling this together is the directing pair, McGehee and Siegel. This is their fifth movie together, and neither man has directed anything without the other. I've not seen any of the other four, but the reviews are middling to poor for all of them, so I'm not sure how far the novelty takes us. But it works here perfectly, making the complexity unfold quickly and coherently.

It's an ordinary drama on the surface, but let this one sink in over time. It's that good.

Reviewed by evanston_dad 9 / 10

"What Maisie Knew" Is Splendid

An achingly poignant and quietly brilliant modern retelling of a Henry James story.

The filmmakers make the bold decision to tell the entire story through the point of view of Maisie, a little girl caught in the middle of her parents' bitter breakup. Steve Coogan and Julianne Moore play the mom and dad, and while neither are at heart bad people (though both make strong arguments for that label at various points throughout the film), it's clear that neither should ever have been a parent. They end up hating each other, and using Maisie as a way to get at one another. It's an old story (at least as old as Henry James), but the treatment of it here feels fresh and like something I haven't seen before. The two real caregivers are Maisie's ex-nanny and her mom's new boy toy, both of whom take on the obligation of caring for Maisie even when it's downright weird for them to only because they know that no one else will if they don't. These two fall in love, and create a sort of stand-in nuclear family with Maisie at its center. This should probably feel implausible, but it doesn't the way it plays out the in film.

The acting is excellent all the way around, especially from Julianne Moore, who tears into an unflattering role with everything she's got. Watching a mother realize that the daughter she loves (and make no mistake, flawed as Moore's character is, she does love her daughter) would be better off without her is tough stuff to watch.

Grade: A

Reviewed by SnoopyStyle 7 / 10

Subtle

Maisie (Onata Aprile) is a six year old who is trying to exist as her family disintegrates. Her mother Susanna (Julianne Moore) is a rock star angry at her art dealing husband Beale (Steve Coogan). The divorce is a bitter affair. Eventually Beale marries the nanny Margo (Joanna Vanderham), and Susanna marries bartender Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård). Neither parent is really fit to raise Maisie.

This is a modern day reinterpretation of the Henry James novel. The audience is invited to experience the divorce through the eyes of the child. It is heartbreaking when the mother tries to couch the child in her divorce interview. However there isn't enough of those moments. There is a much more naturalistic flow. It is very subtle. It's maybe too subtle. The inherit drama isn't pushed out to the front. The child is an isolated passive figure floating from one caretaker to the next. It's a tale often told since it was first published in 1897.

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