Artists Trail 2023 film: Maudie
Aisling Walsh, 2016, Canada, Ireland, Colour, 115 mins, Certificate: 12
An incredible, inspiring true story about a courageous woman who was also a resilient artist. An unexpected, mesmerising, big little film about the art of living and the unending life of the art. Against all odds.
Our Artists Trail screening sheds a revealing light on the life and work of the Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis. Much celebrated now, she led a uniquely creative, fulfilling and ultimately content life. All despite her life long battle with rheumatoid arthritis, poverty, being marginalised by her own family and navigating the at times cruel temper of her supportive but grumpy husband – survival being the cornerstone of their relationship, at least in the beginning, when they were still two lonely outcasts, each quietly desperate to find some kind, any kind, of solace.
A multicultural endeavour of a film, it was written by Canadian actress, writer and producer, Sherry White, directed by Irish, uncompromising Aisling Walsh (Song for a Raggy Boy) and starring the English, sublime as ever Sally Hawkins and the American Ethan Hawke, in possibly the best performance of his life. It took the Canadian Screen Awards by storm, triumphed at the Irish Film and Television Awards and became a surprise hit.
The perfect example of what an inviting, wide open, full of wonderful discoveries, window into the world, near and far, cinema can be, Maudie is raw, candid, and extraordinarily lively – anything but what you expect from a typical, sanitised, Hollywood biopic.
An incredible, inspiring, true piece of cinematic art.
Reviews:
“Oscillating between moments of pain and ones of inspiring artistic expression, Maudie captures the nuance of Maud Lewis’s life and her unexpected success as an artist.” Olivia Gauthier, Hypoallergic
“The movie doesn’t erase the hard edges of Lewis’s life. Instead, it attenuates them — a brutal slap across the face, you suspect, stands in for more instances of physical abuse — … There’s an argument to be made against such softening, though, as Lewis’s work suggests, there’s something necessary about the fantasies we make of our lives as we spin beauty and hope from despair.” Manhla Dargis, The New York Times
“Like the central pair’s romance, Maudie is a slow-burn, unshowy film, as much about looks and silences as what’s being said... it is Hawkins and Hawke’s nuanced performances that make this complicated, unconventional but delicately moving relationship ring perfectly true.” Liz Beardsworth, Empire
“Maudie is beautiful, disturbing, unsettling, unconventional. It is challenging conceptions of love, marriage, romance, relationship roles, and on it goes. It’s a slow and steady film that gets the thoughts percolating, lingering long after the credits have ended.” Jessica Joergensen, The Silver Petticoat Review