Review: Maggie
Who knew it would be so hard to raise a zombie? Who knew an Arnold Schwarzenegger film could make you cry? Well, both of these questions are answered by Tribeca Films release, Maggie. This 2015 post-apocalyptic drama, starring Arnold, Abigail Breslin, and Joely Richardson, show us that not all zombie films need to be a gore fest to bring something meaningful to the genre.
It’s not clear where, exactly, this film is taking place. Nor when, other than after a viral outbreak that turns our exposed loved ones into face eating monstrosities. Maggie (Breslin), the for whom the movie is named after, is the daughter of Wade (Schwarzenegger), a small town farmer. She’s been infected by a virus that slowly, but surely, consumes its host and turns them into zombies. Not all of the world has been affected, a la The Walking Dead. Society seems to run per normal, throwing the infected into quarantine camps. This is something that Wade will not do to his daughter. Ignoring her pleas to just leave her in the city hospital, Wade makes the trek and takes her back home to enjoy some sort of normal life while she can. The real meat of this drama comes from the clear bond that Schwarzenegger and Breslin’s characters have with each other as father and daughter. Joely Richardson plays Caroline, the reluctant stepmother. Not wanting to suffer the same as Maggie, she eventually removes herself and her son from the picture.
In a way, I feel that Maggie is a sort of coming of age film. Maggie hangs out with her friends, kisses the boy for the first time, the normal things you’d expect. The fact that her birth mother is dead only reinforces the strong bond that Maggie and Wade have with each other, and why it’s so hard to let go. There are plenty of times that we can see the virus taking hold of Maggie. She eats a fox for crying out loud! But, we’re also shown how the love of family can keep us for making the hardest decisions of all. For, as we quickly discover in the film, there is no cure. And quarantine is really just a death sentence waiting to happen.
This isn’t your normal Arnold film. No big action scenes, no explosions or rattling or automatic rifles. Just a man struggling with the choices of what’s best for his daughter. As I said before, it’s kind of a tear jerker. Coming hot off the presses of the Tribeca Film Festival in Toronto, it was well received there, but didn’t really make much of a splash in theaters. I do recommend checking this one out, if only to see a more dramatic side of this action star. While Schwarzenegger doesn’t have many lines in this film, what he brings to the screen through his acting (what!?) really speaks to me on how heavy and hard it can and should be to make a life and death decision for the ones you love. Even if the ones you love are about to eat your face.
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