Maudie

Sal­ly Hawkins brings her A‑game to the role of Maud Lewis, a real-life Nova Sco­tia folk artist whose work gained a cer­tain noto­ri­ety after her death in 1970. The actor appears to have built her frag­ile, jit­tery per­for­mance around the naïve paint­ings that Lewis pro­duced in her dusty road­side shack, where she lived with her abu­sive hus­band, Everett (Ethan Hawke).

These can­vas­es con­tain­ing pic­turesque land­scape scenes, bright­ly coloured flow­ers and sick­en­ing­ly cute ani­mals speak of a woman who sees beau­ty and vibran­cy in the most dis­mal of cir­cum­stances, and Hawkins chan­nels this idea of an artist who stub­born­ly looks for the best in a sit­u­a­tion while very much accept­ing the grim realities.

Ais­ling Walsh’s straight­for­ward biopic offers an episod­ic trawl through Lewis’ seclud­ed life, from the point where she was split from her mon­ey-grab­bing broth­er and sent to live with her aunt, to her even­tu­al demise, pos­si­bly the result of chron­ic arthri­tis. It cap­tures the moment where she realis­es her love for paint­ing, and cel­e­brates the idea that she con­tin­ues despite not pos­sess­ing any con­ven­tion­al gifts.

Also cen­tral to the film is the abu­sive rela­tion­ship which forms at the cen­tre, with Maud accept­ing a job as Everett’s live-in maid as a way to get away from her aunt. She suf­fers the tor­ments of his rit­u­al humil­i­a­tion and phys­i­cal assaults because she sees the good, hon­est man nes­tled deep down in his heart. Hawke scowls and broods, but such is the por­ten­tous tone of the film, his even­tu­al accep­tance of Maud as life com­pan­ion and bread win­ner comes as a lit­tle surprise.

The prob­lem is that Walsh (unlike Lewis) lacks the courage of her artis­tic con­vic­tions and the film amounts to lit­tle more than a bland, sen­ti­men­tal life sto­ry that’s pow­ered by two strong cen­tral per­for­mances. The ques­tion posed at the end of the film seems to be, why aren’t we cast­ing Sal­ly Hawkins in more movies?