‘What Maisie Knew’
Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel
Starring Onata Aprile, Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan, Alexander Skarsgård and Joanna Vanderham
Drama
99 Mins
R

What Maisie Knew is an emotional powerhouse of a film led by an adorably funny-faced young actress functioning on a purely natural level, allowing the “performance” underneath to disappear entirely. It strikes a particularly meaningful chord for the “divorced generation” and anyone who has been part of a broken home will feel heart-warbling empathy for the fledgling Maisie. Directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel tread carefully through difficult territory and instead of offering a tired, sentimentally-formulated heart-throbber, they have crafted a compelling but tragic familial drama that breaks the mold by being dreadfully honest.

At once a counterpoint and response to Beasts of the Southern Wild, What Maisie Knew explores themes of forced adolescence. Instead of the dreamlike wetlands setting of Beasts, this is bare-bones realism plunkered down in the heart of New York City.

The picture opens with Maisie (Onata Aprile), a sweet little five-year-old swept up in her childish fantasies and playing make-believe. She’s a perfectly normal little tyke, albeit abnormally cute, who plays with toy horses and ogles at the wonder of the New York skyscrapers looming above her ritzy apartment. But there’s a different breed of normalcy in Maisie’s life, as she is surrounded by her parents incessant arguing and is left almost unfazed by the cycle of domestic admonishment unfolding around her.

As she merrily trots about the house collecting pizza money or making herself her own food and passing out in front of the T.V., her parents, Susana (Julianne Moore) and Beale (Steve Coogan) holler at each other, getting incrementally louder and more personal in their attacks. Although it is abundantly clear that this hostile environment is no suitable place for a child, it’s the only world that Maisie knows and it’s become as normal to her as a walk in the park or the taste of a Kraft grilled cheese sandwich.

When her unmarried parents do call it quits and split ways, a battle ensues behind closed doors for custody of their dear Maisie. But the fighting doesn’t stop there. As they duke it out in court, Maisie is little more than a pawn in their game of comeuppances. Rather than caring for her interests, these two self-involved parents are more concerned with their own career successes and egos then they are about their own daughter.

Their resulting courtship for custody is more a battle of pride that one born out of genuine care and love. To them, Maisie is a trophy to be won, not a child to be cherished. She is a source of comfort and self-worth that they otherwise lack. Poor Maisie is stuck in the midst, quietly navigating her confused and crumbling world but even after the dump-trucks of neglect that they bury her in week-by-week, Maisie is helplessly adoring of her parents, making it all the more crushing to watch them let her down again and again.

In the haze of separation, both parents get hastily hitched, Susana to the young and lanky Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård) and Beale to long-time live-in-nanny Margo (Joanna Vanderham). With Maisie’s folks all wrapped up in themselves, the responsibility of caring for Maisie falls unto the shoulders of these new, semi-surrogate parents. At first obligatorily sparing with each other, Margo and Lincoln recognize their counterpart in each other and their mutual love for Maisie blossoms into an unexpected friendship.

As Beale and Susana’s sanctimonious posturing plays out, a universal truth about love is revealed, particularly the notion that love is not petty nor does it want for itself. Here, their professed love for Maise is more an addiction than anything – a one-hit fix of undeserved lovin’ to get them going through their next few weeks. Dissecting their parent-daughter relationship we find none of the tropes of love as described by John Lennon but something more demanding and hollow. Petty love, however, is not criminal and so the warfare marches on.

Ticking down the list of performers, there is nothing but praise to pile on. Aprile as Maisie is great beyond her years and it’s hard to tell if she was even acting. Whenever she speaks, an age-appropriate-innocence as well as empathy beyond her years seeps from her as naturally as fresh water from a spring. To draw the inevitable comparison, she’s a white Quvenzhané Wallis who deserves recognition just as much as the former did. Mommy-not-so-dearest Julianne Moore gives a measured and striking performance as Susana as she allows her own selfish lifestyle to overshadow her daughter even though she tries to bend things and make them seem otherwise. As a counterpoint to the overbearing and illusive Susana, Joanna Vanderham’s Margo has the beating soul of a mother and puts priority in that stake. Vanderham drips with earnest concern and youthful naivety and really gives a fulfilled sense of spirit to Margo. 

Over in the men’s boxing ring, Beale and Lincoln duke it out for paternal authority. Coogan’s sneering, stiff-upper-lip British persona is ideally matched for Beale and although he’s not a genuinely bad-guy, you can’t help but think of him as little more than a parent of convenience. He’s more likely to buy an expensive gift than to have a genuine conversation with his daughter. While Beale plays the role of father when it suits him, Lincoln is a rock. Rocking the Skarsgård-slump, Alexander Skarsgård as Lincoln is disarmingly gentle and loving. Laying the brooding antihero to rest, he offers up a mild-natured and wholly likeable character that you cannot help but root for. 

What hangs with you after the film is over and the lights come up is not the moments of ferocity but the moments of quiet. It’s the sense of hope imparted by the lingering light buried in the innocence of children. It’s the silent reeling the characters are left in in their own private moment of self-realization. It’s the acceptance of tough truths.

We’re ultimately left to wonder about the lasting scars and impending legal battles, as Maisie’s life going forward is destined to be an uphill battle with no foreseeable end. There are many years to suffer through and many more wounds to endure for this little girl with a gumdrop personality and yet her path isn’t painted as too glum or hopeless.

In the age of divorce as norm, this is a strikingly close-to-the-bone story that cuts deep into the ethos of modern day child-rearing.  It’s sentimental without ever being sappy and, in the end, even more touching because of its emotional difficulty. The hard truth to this story; there’s no light at the end of the tunnel and fairy-tales only exist in books. With phenomenal acting across the board, tender directing and a gem in little Onata Aprile, this is a film worthy of respect that, like its lead character, should be appreciated and cherished.