In Rebecca Miller’s lighthearted rom com Maggie’s Plan, her titular character Maggie (Greta Gerwig) is a hopeless romantic and doesn’t want to wait on finding “true love” in order to have children. So she makes a rash decision to accept a sperm sample to use from Guy (Travis Fimmel), an old college friend and a rising entrepreneur in the pickle making industry. She almost goes through with it, until she meets the highly regarded professor John Harding at the New School where she bumps into him during a shared mistake with their pay checks.
It doesn’t take long for them to realize their shared feelings for one another, and right before she is about to use Guy’s sperm, John comes knocking at the door and soon confesses his true feelings for her. Phew, that was a close call. Except that things aren’t going to be that easy, considering that John is married to equally brilliant academic mind Georgette (Julianne Moore), who he has two children with. Of course.
Miller skips ahead years into the couples shared future, and wouldn’t you know it, they have a kid of their own and are happily married, or at least for a while. Until Maggie begins seeing things in John that she didn’t before, quickly remembering that she did want to have a kid without the always messy confines of a romantic relationship. It’s during a personal conversation with her best friends, and married couple, Felicia and Tony (Maya Rudolph and Bill Hader) where Maggie hatches the brilliantly evil plan to purposely reunite John and Georgette so she can dump him back with his old family and resume her life with the child that she so desires. What can possibly go wrong?
This whacky but charming comedic take on a romance gone wrong is in Miller’s wheelhouse and it’s the combination of her script, the use of New York, as well as the great performances from the always reliable Gerwig and Hawke, as well as the scene stealing Julianne Moore, accent and all. Miller is able to make a film that feels in a world that we recognize, but also in one that seems nutty and impossible to imagine dealing with. It’s not an easy task to create this duality, but with Maggie’s Plan she finds a happy balance that is quite enjoyable.
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