There’s a certain sinking feeling you sometimes get when you write about films for a living and a new romcom comes along. It is probably akin to food writer’s disdain of a new burger joint.
Thankfully, Maggie's Plan has a few things going for it to help it stand out from the mundane crowd.
Firstly, it is written and directed by Rebecca Miller. Not only is she the daughter of legendary playwright Arthur Miller, she is a filmmaker of some note, having written and directed four previous films, including 2009's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and 2002's Personal Velocity.
Secondly, when I broach the subject of romcoms with Miller, she is adamant that her film does not fit into that overstuffed pigeonhole.
“No,” she says. “I don’t really watch romcoms. It’s all kind of predictable and you know what’s going to happen and I just don’t want to do that.
“There’s 20,000 of these films out there, and they’re great, but I don’t want to do that.”
The marketing people might have a different view, judging by the reams of press releases that play up the romance and comedy – but I’m with Miller. Her film certainly does not follow the same tired, overfamiliar romcom route that we are so used to seeing.
“I don’t want to see it as a romcom,” Miller adds. “It’s not even a genre I know anything about as I don’t really watch them. I just like to think this is a story.”
Miller is correct in noting that her film tells a proper story, rather than – as is often the case in the genre – just providing a backdrop for series of hilarious gags at the expense of the ill-fated, love-struck protagonists.
It stars Greta Gerwig as control freak Maggie who, when she falls out of love with her husband, John (Ethan Hawke), comes up with the perfect plan to rid herself of him – reunite him with his ex-wife (Julianne Moore).
These are not your usual romantic comedy characters, however – they are all academics, discussing subjects such as the fetishism of objects in the dying days of the capitalist empire. It is all a long way from When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle.
This is not your typical romcom formula, in other words, not least because the story puts women at the forefront of the action. Miller is seen in indie-cinema circles as something of a torchbearer for feminist cinema – though it is a torch she doesn’t seem to keen to left holding.
“What is feminist cinema? It’s kind of silly,” she says. “I’m not a feminist film maker. I just happen to be a woman.
“I think we need to look much more at films. It doesn’t really matter who directs them. There’s this whole idea that there are certain sorts of films, and this idea that women can’t make certain sorts of film – if it’s a mafia movie, if it’s an action movie or a war movie, they’re kind of ‘men’s films’.
“How many of those men have ever actually been in the mafia? I just think everybody is a human being, so let them make films.”
cnewbould@thenational.ae
