What Maisie Knew (2012)

Though initially put off by the description of a little girl witnessing her parents' dysfunctional relationship, Jack and I loved this movie, starring remarkable six-year-old Onata Aprile, with Julianne Moore (last blogged in Being Flynn) and Steve Coogan (most recently in Our Idiot Brother) as the parents and Alexander Skarsgård (was in Melancholia, but we hated it) and Joanna Vanderham (new to me) as support, literally and figuratively. Based on the 1897 novel of the same name by Henry James, this is 100% contemporary, with Moore's Susanna as a rocker á la Courtney Love, Coogan's Beale a globe-trotting art dealer, Skarsgård's Lincoln a bartender at a ritzy restaurant, and Vanderham's Margo an au pair. The novel is skillfully adapted by Nancy Coyne (her feature debut after a couple of episodes of TV horror shows) and Carroll Cartwright, who co-wrote two other movies.

This is the fifth venture for directing partners Scott McGehee and David Siegel (contrary to imdb he is not the David Siegel in Queen of Versailles) and I've seen two: The Deep End (2001) which starred Tilda Swinton as a mother who stops at nothing to protect her teenage son and Bee Season (2005) which featured another terrific child performance.

Special note must be made of Maisie's spectacular and colorful wardrobe, designed by Stacey Battat (Broken English (2007), Somewhere, Country Strong, Another Happy Day). Here's one picture. Further eye candy is to be found in the production design by Kelly McGehee (Bee Season, Lymelife, The Art of Getting By, more) (probably related but I don't know for sure) and cinematography by Gilles Nuttgens (won at Sundance for The Deep End and also shot Water (2005), a miraculous tale of a child widow in India).

Nice music is by Nick Urata (last blogged in Ruby Sparks) and clips can be heard on the amazon page and a whole track on this page. Here's a list of seven songs on the soundtrack.

The current winner of the Producers Plethora Prize is a 14 minute short we saw in April with 39 producers of various rankings, but this deserves a mention with 28.

The DVD is scheduled for release August 13. We recommend it highly. So do rottentomatoes participants (critics 88%/audiences 83).