What Maisie Knew

Six-year-old Maisie's mother is a rock musician and her father an art dealer. Both work, both travel and both compete to leave the child with the other. After the divorce custody is shared; the mother marries a bartender and the father marries Maisie's nanny. The two new spouses become the people who actually look after her. The subject is not divorce but love turning into a weapon. The parents genuinely love the child; the problem is that they use that love against each other. The film makes a monster of neither, which is exactly what makes it more uncomfortable. The form sits at the child's height. The camera stays mostly at Maisie's level; the adult arguments are heard through doors in half sentences and the viewer knows no more than she does. The source is Henry James's novel of 1897. The adaptation moves the story to present-day New York and removes the Victorian frame entirely while keeping the narrative structure, because the novel's real invention was always the child's restricted view. Onata Aprile plays Maisie, Julianne Moore the mother, Steve Coogan the father and Alexander Skarsgård the stepfather. Who it is for: viewers who like family drama and films told from a child's position. Who it is not for: anyone who will find the ending tied up too neatly; the objection is fair.