Acclaimed dramedy Maggie’s Plan is released in UK cinemas this Friday [read our ★★★★ review here] and writer-director Rebecca Miller has been chatting to Flickering Myth’s Freda Cooper about the film and how she became involved.
Maggie’s Plan marks Miller’s first film since 2009’s The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and when she first discovered the project, it still had yet to be finished:
“The book came to me through my friend Karen Rinaldi and he actually on sent me the Maggie chapters of the book – I haven’t actually read the whole book yet! It’s published in a year’s time but in those chapters was the fundamentals of the love triangle and the basic hook of the movie. I added the best friends and the pickle man so a lot of the plot was built out by me.”
Maggie’s Plan owes a debt to many of the films of Woody Allen and Miller says that she was on the look out for something that was “to the point”, with the emphasis (and success) of the film lying with its screenplay and pithy dialogue:
“I was looking for something minimal and to the point because that’s just my sort of aesthetic that I like to use exactly what I need and know more. The camera for example doesn’t move unless it needs too and when it does move there’s a reason. I didn’t cut anything out of the movie but I did cut 45 minutes of dialogue.”
Coupled with the great script is a superb array of talented actors, led by Greta Gerwig, Julianne Moore and Ethan Hawke, and while Miller was delighted to have such an esteemed company she hadn’t specifically written the parts for them:
“I started with Julianne Moore and I went to Greta Gerwig and Ethan Hawke and each of them had things to say and I begin to sort of tailor it to them in a way. For example Julianne would say “I need to be seen working” and that’s when I built up that scene in the auditorium where she and Ethan are having a domestic on a panel.”
You can watch the full interview in the player below…
Maggie’s Plan is released in UK cinemas on July 8th.
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