For a 6 year old child Maisie knows a lot, primarily because the two main adults in her life act like pretentious spoilt brats right in front of her all the time. She lives with her parents in a fancy duplex apartment in Manhattan where there is much screaming and slamming of doors until one day it gets too much even for them and when her father is out, her mother has the locks changed. Now separated, a battle royal begins over Maisie. It’s not that her father and mother don’t love her in their own warped ways but they are both so completely self-absorbed that most of the time they conveniently forget she exists. Now they are prepared to fight for the custody of Maisie purely to spite each other.
Dad has lured away young innocent Margo the Nanny who is the only stable influence in Maisie’s life and although he ends up marrying her she receives the same scant attention as the child. Not to be outdone, Suzanna marries Lincoln an easy-going barmen and makes no pretence of the fact she has done it so Maisie has a live-in child-minder. Yet when Suzanna dumps the child on Lincoln one day he actually is surprised to find that he really likes her and they form a tight bond, which in turn makes Suzanna mad with jealously.
Lincoln and Margo are soon estranged from their new spouses who hardly seem to notice their absence, and they find more than solace in each other and together are able to provide Maisie a real family environment for the very first time.
This movie adapted a Henry James novel to which I will readily admit I have never read so will not join the whole clamouring conversation about unfortunate comparisons. This tale is about the abuse that two mean and destructive people inflicted on their child just to satisfy their own narcissistic needs. What made the telling so powerful was the wide eyed looks of the remarkable Onata Aprile playing Maisie, who with very few words gave this distinct impression that she was taking every act of their childish behaviour in …. even though that I know that in reality it a ridiculous assumption to make of a 6 year old.
Julianne Moore was perfect as the epitome of mean-spiritedness as Suzanna and she was always wonderfully bedecked in her trashy rock star clothes that were too tight, too short and too shiny. Steve Cooghan played Beale the father just like he plays every other part he has had; Joanna Vanderham had the less glamorous roll of being the slightly too perfect Nanny, but at least she got to make out with the handsome lanky Alexander Skarsgård who played Lincoln.
It’s a rather devastating story that had me invested in the outcome from the word go, and whilst I thought it would annoy me from either a moral standpoint, or the fact that the parents were such hideous people, I will readily admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. And no, it wasn’t because I was envious of Suzanna’s skanky wardrobe!
★★★★★★★★
