Maudie
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: June 16, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
10
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJun 28, 2017
The story offers many opportunities for glibness and sentimentality. Walsh falls for none of them. She enhances the grimness of Lewis’s surroundings, but does not exploit it. Read full review
100
ObserverThelma AdamsJun 20, 2017
A gorgeous color palette and a tactile sensitivity to the emotions and intelligence of rural people help to create an organic work that integrates brilliant casting, yummy production and costume design, and fine cinematography. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJul 13, 2017
Maudie is a work of art. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJul 10, 2017
What shines through is the beauty of Guy Godfree’s cinematography — the light has a lovely, soft stillness to it, like a painting — and a remarkable performance by Hawkins, whose impossibly wide smile seems to bring the sun. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 22, 2017
Maudie is one of the most beautiful and life-affirming and uplifting movies of the year, capable of moving us to tears of appreciation for getting to know the title subject. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJun 22, 2017
Hawke is good at playing bad, but Hawkins is better, rendering, in Maudie, a portrait of a woman that feels raw, real and revelatory. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJun 15, 2017
This is a remarkably assured movie, through and through. Walsh and cinematographer Guy Godfree have taken care to make every individual shot a thing of beauty. But the artfulness always acts in service of the emotions, which in the end become both inspiring and heartbreaking. Read full review
80
EmpireLiz BeardsworthAug 7, 2017
The only fireworks here are of the indoor kind, but this sensitive, beautifully acted film lingers long after the final frame. And the Newfoundland locations are breathtaking. Read full review
80
Time OutTomris LafflyJun 16, 2017
The film glows with the kind of sweetness last seen in John Crowley’s "Brooklyn." All it asks of you is an open heart. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJun 15, 2017
Unlike the thick directness in Maud’s work, the movie about her is almost pointillist in detailing the tiny steps that make up an enduring marriage. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 11, 2017
This is more “Iris” than “Frida” or “Seraphine,” though anyone who has ever seen the screen story of an artist — “Basquiat,” “Pollock,” etc. — will ease into the well-established rhythms of such films. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJun 29, 2017
Hawkins — small and mighty as usual — draws her energy from the quiet courage in Maud’s drive to create, to modify and adorn her bleak world with the images that express the contentment she knew as a child. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 16, 2017
The odd-couple pairing does yield its occasional rewards, though. The collision between Everett’s monosyllabic gruffness and Maud’s chatty ditherings is inherently funny, and so is her insistence on marriage before sex, which he finds confounding. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyJoey NolfiJun 15, 2017
Like one of the many flowers Maud painted in the single-room, seaside shack she and Everett shared, Maudie is breezy and digestible. On an aesthetic level, Maud’s creations aren’t that interesting, but Maudie cherishes the intent of the artist above all, acknowledging that a true work of art is often found in exploring why the brush is moved in the first place. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorApr 13, 2017
The heart and mind of Maudie are always in the right place. Read full review
73
Paste MagazineKenji FujishimaJun 15, 2017
Hawkins’ performance in Maudie is as indelible a feat of psychological imagination as it is of physical dedication. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 29, 2017
Hawkins is fantastic. She duplicates Maud’s gnarled hands, but doesn’t overdo it — she simply captures Maud’s struggle and portrays it as part of her life. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 19, 2017
Sally Hawkins doesn’t rise above the film’s conception, but she makes it work. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 15, 2017
Stick with the movie for its leads, Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, a beautifully matched pair who open up two closed people, unleashing torrents of feeling. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 7, 2016
If ultimately Maudie doesn’t have much new to say about love or art, at least its two misfits provide an insight into something deeply true about long-term commitment. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 5, 2016
A stellar, warmly persuasive starring turn by Sally Hawkins as crippled, self-taught painter Maud Lewis is the raison d'etre of Maudie. Read full review
65
TheWrapClaudia PuigSep 3, 2016
The story of a woman dismissed by those around her who asserts herself through art testifies to the indomitable power of creativity. Why turn that compelling story into a predictable romance? Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 22, 2017
Maudie works valiantly, and not entirely convincingly, to suggest a happy-ish marriage, all things considered. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJun 15, 2017
Maudie is hit-or-miss, but you’ll probably bawl anyway. Read full review
60
The GuardianJordan HoffmanSep 10, 2016
If anyone other than Hawkins were in this film, it would be very hard to recommend. With her in virtually every scene, it is a lovely, tiny character study. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 5, 2016
What little dimension Maudie offers is a direct result of Hawkins’ contributions, which draw from her character’s past to add texture to her performance. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJun 14, 2017
The problem is as old as the biopic: Somewhere in trying to tell a life story, life gets lost. Read full review
58
The PlaylistJordan RuimySep 16, 2016
There seems to be a tiny gem of a character study hidden inside Walsh’s film, unfortunately, Maudie and its at-odds tones just don’t work. It’s a film that one can actively admire, but its difficult to fully embrace. Read full review
58
The Film StageJordan RuimySep 14, 2016
It’s a real shame that Walsh decides to concentrate a big chunk of her movie on the stilted love affair between Everett and Maud, in a relationship that starts aggressively intriguing, but becomes the definition of saccharine by its climax. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJul 12, 2017
However much this film strays from documented facts about Maud Lewis’ life, it still does a laudable job of presenting much of her life’s austere flavor. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 15, 2017
The story has the hollow ring of artifice, even though Ms. Hawkins shrinks quite remarkably into the physical aspects of the role and opens up its spiritual dimensions. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 5, 2016
Despite charming performances from Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, this saccharine romance...rings a bit false from start to finish. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinAug 3, 2017
Art was a labour of love for Maud Lewis: that much Lewis’s film makes clear. But by zeroing in on both the love and labour of it, the art itself – and the point of Maud’s life story, by extension – gets exasperatingly short shrift. Read full review
38
Slant MagazinePeter GoldbergJun 13, 2017
Maud Lewis herself couldn’t paint a hurricane that would blow the film’s overburdened narrative off course. Read full review
0
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 21, 2017
Frankly, we are left with nothing, except with a movie that insists that we love it — or worse, assumes we will — because its subject is so worthy. Even on that score, that of convincing us of the worthiness of its subject, Maudie falls down. Read full review
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