‘Maudie’ a glossed-over artist portrait
I’m sorry to say that “Maudie,” a film biography of the Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, comes across as a somewhat sugar-coated, not-fullyrealized creation in spite of the efforts of London-born Sally Hawkins, one of my favorite performers, in the title role.
Directed by Dublin-born, TV veteran Aisling Walsh and scripted by Canadian TV writer Sherry White, the film traces the hardscrabble life of the physically challenged young woman who suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis as a child — which did not detract from her adolescent sexual adventures — her rocky romance with reclusive, emotionally damaged, often cruel bachelor Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke), who hired her as a housekeeper and then married her, and Maud’s emergence as a Nova Scotia-based folk artist specializing in childlike pictures of flowers and animals.
Lewis’ work fetches far more at art auctions these days than the $2 or $3 she used to sell them for, and the prices are trending upward.
Hawkins is really quite touching as Maud, and Hawke projects an impressive anti-social vibe as Everett. It’s clear that these two were made for each other in some very strange way. But the film never addresses the exploitation of Maud by a vacationing New York City art dealer (Kari Matchett) and is not as dark as it probably should be. Moreover, however good Hawkins is, and she is quite good, her Maud is a glamorized version of the real person, as is evident in real-life stills we see at the end of the film. (“Maudie” contains some sexually suggestive material.)