Source: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
Having recently seen Maudie (2016) at the Edina Cinema, the performance of the two leads, Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, and their chemistry really sticks in my memory. A biography of Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, Hawkins depicts the various challenges Lewis faced throughout her life, brought about principally by her physical problems, which appeared to be degenerative arthritis and perhaps a touch of autism or OCD.
Or maybe not OCD, but instead simply the compulsion to create experienced by every artist; for her, expressed as a need to paint.
The Lewis House, now located in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
Signing on as a housekeeper for fish peddler Everett Lewis (Hawke, who portrays his character as the very archetype of the infamous Norwegian bachelor farmer), she swiftly marries him and begins selling greeting cards to his customers. To beautify her surroundings, she proceeds to turn their one room shack into a display case of her artistic predilections.
A seasonal visitor from New York happens to get wind of her production and introduces her art to the greater world, and soon the art world flocks to their one room shack in Nova Scotia.
Hawkins and Hawke work well together, she looking for any way to continue her painting, he barely articulate and with his own set of mental challenges to confront, if not conquer. Together, they battle through those challenges to find their happiness, while accidentally becoming famous.
I expect at least one Academy Award nomination for the production, if not two.
Recommended, if you like fine acting performances and general technical excellence. The story is not particularly surprising, but it is competent.
