Maudie
By Sam Walker-Smart
Everyone loves a good love story. What’s more, they love a good, period love story – especially if it’s not just the usual Jane Austen affair we get served every year. Starring the Golden Globe-winning Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, Blue Jasmine) and Ethan Hawke, in something of a career renaissance since Boyhood, Maudie takes place in a 1930s Nova Scotia and tells the true story of unlikely folk artist Maud Lewis.
With Maud played with brilliant fragility by Hawkins, the film follows how the arthritic artist escapes the drudgery of her life through her creative work and the unlikely relationship she forges with the bullheaded Everett (Hawke). Starting out as his cleaner, the two social outcasts eventually become more, providing each other simple comfort as Maud becomes something of a celebrity through her vibrant creations.
What follows is not an epic affair, but rather a touching and intimate portrait of a remarkable life – the perfect remedy to the summer blockbuster. (Film is shown in English with Spanish subtitles at Boliche Cinemes, Cines Verdi and Yelmo Cines Icaria. The title in Spanish is Maudie, el color de la vida.)