An average movie

I really had no idea what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I have to admit that I had never heard of Maud Lewis before watching this flick and, to be honest, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of this kind of Naïve paintings. However, this movie didn’t really focus on her Art. Indeed, it turned out to be mostly about her relationship with her husband, Everett Lewis, which wasn’t necessarily a bad idea. However, even in this area, this movie never really became fascinating though. I won’t blame Sally Hawkins as she gave here a really strong performance and completely disappeared in this character. On the other hand, I wasn’t so convinced by Ethan Hawke though. Sure, Hawke is a fine actor but, in this case, especially in his first scenes, it felt like he was pretending to be some grumpy guy but I’m afraid it was never really convincing. It’s too bad because the approach did have some potential. Indeed, it was interesting that these two characters ended up together, not because of love, but above all because they had been rejected by pretty much everyone else around them. However, unfortunately, they didn’t really go deep in this direction and, at some point, both Maud and Everett were eventually professing that they couldn’t live without each other which was maybe cute but it was also terribly derivative and hardly interesting. Eventually, they never displayed what was so special about her paintings or what was so special about her relationship with her husband so you might wonder why you should care at all after all. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, thanks to a fine performance by Sally Hawkins, I still think it is worth a look though.