What Maisie Knew (2012)

Susannah, Maisie and Lincoln

Kids take effort. So some people shouldn’t be parents. They don’t have the attention span, patience, compassion, understanding or disposition. Some simply lack the energy and desire to do the job properly. This is certainly the case with nearly all the adults in the 2012 film “What Maisie Knew.”

A contemporary update of the 1897 Henry James novel, the film centers on an 8-ish-year old girl, (wide-eyed Onata Aprile) living in Manhattan with her less-than-ideal, quarrelling parents.

From the start, we see Maisie’s life is no picnic. The family resides in an opulent multi-level apartment in the city. Her parents (Steve Coogan and Julianne Moore) argue bitterly in front of her. Having grown used to their fights, Maisie reacts with obliviousness: While parents battle in the living room, she cheerfully tromps downstairs to give tip money to the pizza delivery guy.

Moore plays mother Susanna, the lead singer in a touring rock band (in concert footage we see her covering one of my favorite bands, the Kills). She drinks, smokes and swears around her daughter. Wearing shabby-chic clothes and a devil-may-care affect, she condemns more traditional parents as “Nazis.” Given the trappings of her apartment, she’s clearly very successful. However there’s also an air of instability surrounding her day job. Rationalizing why she can’t look after Maisie one night, she matter-of-factly mentions that if she misses another gig, there’ll be a lawsuit.

Coogan’s Beale is a similarly successful art dealer, much more conservative and older than Susannah. He’s wears crisp suits, and is forever on the phone. We don’t see him as much because he’s too often flying off to Europe “to pursue business opportunities.”

Before long, the parental stress becomes too much bear. Susanna changes the locks. After a late-night shouting match through the front door, Beale moves out, taking Margot with him.

After a brief but bitter legal battle, it’s decided Maisie will split time between parents, ten days with each at a time.

This is the worst possible decision, where the little girl’s concerned.

Rather than taking the time and effort to parent their daughter, Beale and Susannah instead usually try to pawn her off on each other before the scheduled swap date arrives. Or worse, forget when it’s time to pick her up altogether. When she is exchanged, they leave her with doormen, teachers, or complete strangers, hoping for the best. She’s pointed in a direction and flung out of cabs, left to find her own way. Several times I wondered “wouldn’t these parents have enough good sense to at least walk Maisie into a building, just to ensure she got there safely?”

Both parents seemingly adore Maisie in brief bursts between concerts and phone calls. Though they repeatedly profess love for Maisie, when it comes time to do the heavy lifting of parenting, to actually give time and energy to caring for their daughter, they’re both too distracted by their careers to be bothered. Between their careers, Beale and Susannah continually put their own needs before their daughter’s. Staggeringly so. To them Maisie isn’t so much a living, breathing little girl, who needs love, caring, guidance and attention, as she is an inconvenience to be quickly escaped. More often than not, though, she’s left with her young, pretty, Scottish nanny Margo (Joanna Vanderham).

Soon, Margot’s becomes more than a nanny to Beale. Likewise, Susannah unexpectedly marries a handsome young bartender named Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgard of Trueblood, Generation Kill), who quickly grows fond of Maisie. They bond over coloring books and cooking dinner, something that inspires jealousy and mistrust in the largely absent Susannah.

And what of Maisie? Aprile is adorable as the young girl at the center of a world full of irresponsible adults. But would a small child in the big city seem this capable of adjusting so quickly on-the-fly to her parents’ almost total abandonment? Sure, children can be resilient, but to this degree? Most kids cry immediately when they get lost. Lost is almost Maisie’s default setting. She negotiates the streets, restaurants and bars of Manhattan better than some fully-functioning adults. After nearly everyone in her life leaves her, would a little girl react so?

The film is well acted. Petty, combative and quick to anger, Moore’s Susannah is a close relative of the unstable and brittle Amber Waves she played so effectively in Boogie Nights. Coogan alternates between charmingly funny and caring, to maddeningly aloof. Vanderham’s Margot transforms dramatically, as she goes from benevolent nanny to put-upon stepmom. Always smiling, Skarsgard’s Lincoln projects both a loveable dopiness and sincere tenderness. He’s the only one who seems to consistently care about Maisie’s whereabouts and wellbeing.

A postcard from New York, the movie is sumptuously filmed, showing a Manhattan that’s at once bustling, while also cozy and warm and inviting. Several shots are filmed from Maisie’s low-level perspective, looking up at the big world around her. She stares in wonder (but not intimidation) at the tall buildings, and crowded rooms full of strangers.

As much as I enjoyed most of “What Maisie Knew,” the film left me wanting. To its credit, it’s decidedly not formulaic, but still believable. The uncomfortable situations between adults—all with Maisie present—will ring true to most children of divorce. It is patient and (though only 199 minutes) at times meandering. After showing so much dysfunction, it’s third act felt a little too convenient and rosy. Sure, we want the best for little Maisie. But when saddled with a group of care-givers so neglectful and self absorbed, it might be too much to ask for her ending to turn out a happy one.