Maudie

2016 / Ireland / Canada / 116 min. / Colour

Director: Aisling Walsh

Sally Hawkins, Ethan Hawke, Kari Matchett, Zachary Bennett, Gabrielle Rose, Greg Malone

Maudie is based on the life of the folk artist Maud Lewis, who painted in Nova Scotia, and that you are unlikely to have come across her is irrelevant. The film does not shirk from the many hardships with which Lewis had to contend and, above all, it avoids the maudlin, concentrating on how successive tragedies are overcome. At its heart is Hawkins universally praised performance and it’s thanks to her that: “Maudie cleverly avoids mawkishness and sentiment to give us a raw and pared back version of Lewis’s remarkable life.”