What Maise Knew

I think Hollywood is finally catching on to the fact that kids really aren’t all that funny. Having kids say stupid things like “Kawabunga” or “Did I do that?” makes you want to punch them rather than hug them. I’m not condoning punching children, unless it’s Haley Joel Osment in A.I. because then it doesn’t really count as he is a robot. But I am saying that giving kids stupid catch phrases has gone by the way side in the same manner that talking animals have.  I mean, when was the last time you saw Hilary Swank in a movie? I kid Hilary, I kid but seriously she is John Elway in drag.

What Maise Knew is a story about a bitter custody battle between Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan shown through the eyes of their young daughter Maise. Moore is an over the hill rocker who still lives the lifestyle while Coogan is a businessman who puts his work above any and everything else in life. As neither of them can get past themselves and their own career aspirations, they break up and leave poor Maise in the middle of their fighting.

They are constantly trying to get back at one another and are using their daughter to do so. Coogan marries Maise’s young and beautiful nanny (Joanna Vanderham) to in part help him take care of her but also to hurt Moore. So Moore feels the need to marry a bartender (Alexander Skarsgard) for the same reasons. As the movie goes on you see that both Vanderham and Skarsgard care more for the child than her actual parents do. Moore and Coogan do love their kid at some level but its more like the love you have for a pet than anything else. They will give her their full attention the second she runs into the room but after about 2 minutes they are bored and move on to something else. It’s heartbreaking as Maise is a lovable kid who is pretty low maintenance, all she wants is for her parents to love her as much as she loves them. And it never fails, no matter how awful her parents treat her, there she is running into their arms every chance she gets.

Maise is played wonderfully by relative newcomer Onata Aprile. She simply acts like any normal 6 year old would but can bring the emotion whenever the scene calls for it. There is one particular scene early on where she attempts to have a sleep over with a friend from school but the young outsider can’t handle the party that Moore is throwing on the same night, so sadly their fun comes to an abrupt end. There are actually much worse scenes than this but I don’t want to ruin the experience for you. Moore is surely to be nominated for an Oscar as she doesn’t pull what most A listers do, and that’s to try and save her image. Her character is truly an awful person and she doesn’t sugarcoat it at all. My mom has always hated Meryl Streep because she felt she played her role in Kramer vs Kramer a little too well. Well you will also walk out hating Moore just a little bit after seeing this performance. Skargard is also wonderful in this film as he is naturally a bit awkward around Maise at first but he eventually grows into the role of an awesome father figure for her. His acting in this movie has completely changed my perception of him and I am all of a sudden a fan of his.

It feels like this movie went to a few extremes but nothing like you experience in Precious. It’s definitely tough to watch at times simply because you feel sorry for Maise and you know that there are tons of clueless parents like this in real life. But the end result is this adaptation of Henry James’s novel is done really well and that is why I give it a rating of FRESH!