‘Maudie’ neglects to tell a story
It deals with the life of Maud Lewis, who was apparently a beloved folk artist in Canada. Maud had horrible arthritis for virtually her entire life. She had trouble walking, and even holding her head up was a challenge. According to the movie, she was a simple soul, often taken advantage of, but she had a purity of spirit that came through in her work and expressed the beauty of her inner being.
OK, so you get it: She was a lovely person, so you’d better like this movie.
But ... a humble question. Where is the drama in this story? Or to put it more starkly, where is the story in this story? You might say, well, since it’s about a woman who became a notable artist, the drama must be contained in the artist’s struggle to express herself. Nice try, but no. Apparently — if you believe “Maudie” — the art just came through Maud Lewis. She was a natural.
Fine. So maybe the drama can come from her struggle to find an opportunity to paint. Or in her struggle for recognition. Or in the struggles of her personal life. Again, no. No. And no. She had plenty of time to do her work. Recognition came to her without her asking. And though her personal life was no picnic — she was ill and ill-treated by her family — she didn’t struggle much. She more or less just stumbled into a stable life situation, albeit a humble one, living with Everett Lewis, the man who became her husband, in a oneroom house in Nova Scotia.
Everett was not the most enlightened fellow. As played by Ethan Hawke, he is something of a brute and a primitive, and he insists that Maud do every bit of housework. Then again, they lived in one room. So she didn’t exactly spend her life dragging a vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs. Not much drama there, either.
So what are we left with? Frankly, we are left with nothing, except with a movie that insists that we love it — or worse, assumes we will — because its subject is so worthy. Even on that score, that of convincing us of the worthiness of its subject, “Maudie” falls down. In 2008, there was a French film called “Seraphine,” about the folk artist Seraphine de Senlis, which faced a similar challenge — a protagonist with a blank personality and an uneventful personal life. But “Seraphine” suggested its subject was connected to the elements, to unseen mystical forces, and by the time the movie was over, we believed she was a great artist. “Maudie” doesn’t even make a case for Maud Lewis’ art.
Instead, it’s a showcase for Sally Hawkins to give one of the most heartfelt and sincere bad performances since Jodie Foster in “Nell,” all precious furtive glances and mysterious smiling. And it’s a chance for Ethan Hawke to prove he’s no inarticulate brute, even when he wants to be. He goes through “Maudie” grunting, virtually on every line. This starts out odd, becomes absurd and then is hilarious.
Speaking of hilarity, one way to get through the long, agonizing experience of “Maudie” is to convince yourself it’s a comedy. The spectacle of the actors flailing in a vacuum makes this possible, but intermittently, so the relief comes only in bursts. There’s a vast emptiness in “Maudie,” and ultimately every viewer’s survival strategy gets sucked right into it.