Maggie’s Plan (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 7/7/16. Viewed: 31/7/16.

Director: Rebecca Miller

Actors: Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader

Genre: Comedy / Romance

Rating: M

‘Maggie’s Plan’ is a fairly simple romantic-comedy – quite light and breezy, with a few laughs and nothing too dramatic to bog it down. Maggie (Gerwig) works at a New York university and her “plan” is to have a child by herself, since she’s ready to be a mother (she’s only meant to be 29, mind) and “borrows” some sperm off an old friend. The “plan” goes astray when she meets John (Hawke), a professor/anthropologist who’s trying to write a novel, and falls in love with him.

This is obviously further complicated by the fact John’s married to Georgette (Moore), another professor – but she’s Danish – and Maggie unwittingly becomes a homewrecker. She technically ends up with three kids – hers and John’s, plus her two step-kids John & Georgette already had. Tony (Hader) and Felicia (Rudolph) play her long-married friends and have most of the laugh-out-loud moments. After a few years, Maggie’s sick of John and her new “plan” is to get him back together with Georgette, which Tony accidentally gives away.

The film’s not as madcap as it may sound, and Gerwig plays Maggie as innocent and charming. It’s real fun watching Hawke & Moore out of their comfort zone – Hawke as the bumbling/ignorant guy who has no idea what’s going on in his life and Moore as a straight-and-narrow foreigner, but her accent is hilarious and her character a little deeper than it first appears. The film probably needed a bit more of Hader & Rudolph, but it’s all quite sweet and nice, including the ending.

Overall: Easy-going rom-com.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.