Maggie’s Plan, film review ★★★★★

Greta Gerwig has long been identified with a particular brand of Brooklyn indie comedy, charming audiences with the likes of Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha and Mistress America. Now Rebecca Miller enlists her in new alternative comedy Maggie's Plan – and Gerwig is in full, kooky swing– but it’s Julianne Moore who holds the film’s winning hand.

The film follows Maggie, a late twenties academic desperate to have a baby. Enter Guy, an artisan pickle entrepreneur (yes, really) who she enlists to father her child by insemination. But Maggie’s plan suddenly shifts when she meets John, a married anthropology professor played by Ethan Hawke. Growing tired of his wife, John professes his love and the two enter into a love affair.

Gerwig does what Gerwig does best as the cutesie yet staunchly independent heroine, and Hawke is on excellent form as the vulnerable yet manipulative man in the middle. But it’s Moore who steals the show, putting in a hilarious performance as the adorably eccentric Danish ex-wife, her deadpan comic timing providing many of the film’s laughs.

Just as we can’t help being charmed by the two female leads, we can't fail to see through Hawke’s mawkish leading man. Miller is aware of romantic cliché and uses it brilliantly to her advantage: protestations of love ring fraudulently in the air from behind Hawke’s lopsided spectacles.

A keen observation of adult relationships, Maggie’s Plan brilliantly navigates between would-be sincere declarations of love and shrewd contrivance, gleefully placing the truth somewhere in the middle.