Butler's Cinema Scene

Sally Hawkins

“MAUDIE” My rating: B 

115 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Simultaneously a biopic about an eccentric outsider artist and a politically incorrect love story, “Maudie” isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy.

Director Aisling Walsh’s study of Nova Scotia painter Maud Lewis  — the Canadian equivalent of Grandma Moses — is both inspiring and troubling.

Inspiring because the naive Maud overcame crippling arthritis to develop her primitive yet poetic visual style, and troubling because of her marriage to a man who, at least early in their relationship, was guilty of both physical and psychological abuse.

Good thing, then, that Walsh and screenwriter Sherry White have for their stars the terrific Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, whose performances transcend our usual notions of marital right and wrong.

When we first meet Maud (Hawkins) in the late 1930s, she is a prisoner of her domineering aunt and her indifferent older brother.  Thanks to the arthritis from which she has suffered most of her life, the thirtysomething Maud moves slowly and clumsily; her unimpressive physical presence leads many to assume she’s mentally incapacitated as well.

Hardly.  Though poorly educated, Maud has a biting wit and fierce sense of self.  When she learns that crusty local bachelor Everett Lewis (Hawke) is advertising for a housekeeper, she declares herself a free woman and goes after the job.

Basically she ends up working for room and board for a laborer who was reared in an orphanage, has minimal people skills and is often ruled by his volcanic temper. She puts up with his cruelty because she has nowhere else to go…and because she realizes she’s smart enough to manipulate this angry ignoramus, eventually marrying him.

Ethan Hawke, Sally Hawkins

When she’s not cleaning and cooking in Everett’s absurdly tiny house, Maud dabbles in paint.  She covers the walls with birds and flowers (Everett grouses about it), then moves on to hand-drawn postcards which she peddles around their small farming/fishing community.

A visitor from New York (Kari Matchett) is captivated by Maud’s vision, buys up her work, and encourages her to attempt ever bigger canvasses.  Over years the rural artist becomes something of a national celebrity.

The surly Everett is tempted to nip this highfalutin’ business in the bud, but the canny Maud convinces him to co-sign each painting.  After all, they’re a family business.

“Maudie,” which follows its heroine to her death in 1970, is less concerned with how its subject overcame her physical handicap than with how she overcame her husband’s sullen fury. And it’s here that the film really takes some interesting chances.

The real Maude Lewis

The prevailing cinematic attitude toward abusive male characters is basically to deny them their humanity.  But Hawke — whose innate charisma seeps over even into a grunting oaf like Everett — shows an ignorant, uncultured man’s slow evolution from lout to genuine lover.  As the years pass the affection between Maude and Everett grows stronger and more palpable.  After a rough start, they become a truly caring couple.

With a running time of nearly two hours “Maudie” runs the risk of overstating its case. Just when we think the film is starting to repeat itself, though, the physical production raises the bar with Guy Godfrey’s gorgeous cinematography and the guitar centric musical score by the Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins.

| Robert W. Butler