Maggie Moore(s) has all the makings of a great film. There is an A-list cast that includes Jon Hamm, Tina Fey, and Nick Mohammed, as well as a director in Mad Men star John Slattery, who previously helmed five episodes of the acclaimed series. It is all set against a visually interesting desert town backdrop. Even the premise is intriguing: Two women with the same name end up murdered. There’s a good movie hidden somewhere in Maggie Moore(s). Unfortunately, this version is far from it. With a cluttered ensemble of flat characters, redundant gags, and bewildering plotlines that lead nowhere, one can’t help but wish that Maggie Moore(s) would do less.
There are two main parallel stories going on in the movie. There’s Detective Jordan (Hamm), a lonely widower who’s trying to solve the murder of Maggie Moore after her body is found burned in her car. He ends up working with a nosy woman named Rita (Fey) who lived next door to Moore and often overheard her arguing with her husband Jay (Micah Stock). The two of them have a shared passion for getting to the bottom of what happened, and as their collaboration develops, so do their feelings for each other.
The other main story we follow is Jay’s. The owner of a deli who sells some questionable food and associates with some equally questionable people, Jay finds himself in over his head from the very beginning. It’s quickly revealed he’s accidentally gotten mixed up in criminal activity and, throughout the film, finds himself going even further down a dark path when he attempts to solve his problems.
'Maggie Moore(s)' Central Mystery Is Unmysterious…and That’s a Problem
Maggie Moore(s) employs countless baffling narrative choices, though the most confusing may be the fact that the mystery — who killed these two women and for what reason? — is never really a mystery to the audience. We see every step of the underwhelming rationale and process, spending just as much time with the person behind it as we do with the police trying to figure out what happened. The result is a movie that lacks any real suspense or stakes. To make a whodunit where we know who did it and why exactly they did it is tedious and pointless. One can’t help but feel Maggie Moore(s) would be a stronger movie if it simply picked a lane, either sticking with Jordan’s point of view or committing entirely to Jay’s perspective. The cutting back and forth doesn’t work as neither of them feels smart or motivated enough to employ a real sense of cat-and-mouse.
There are hints of something more clever. There’s a nice, small comment about a seatbelt that ends up becoming important during the final showdown. There seems to be a motif of luck and chance with the coincidence of Maggie’s name and lottery tickets. But the frustrating part is very few of them pay off, ultimately feeling half-baked and unfinished. The ideas presented are fleetingly fun — and the cinematography is beautiful, so everything’s nice to look at — but they never add up to anything substantial.
'Maggie Moore(s)' Characters and Relationships Feel Empty
In the quest to flesh out its world, none of the characters themselves feel fleshed out. Instead, they all feel like one-dimensional characters — cliches we’ve seen time and time again. Jay is the bumbling fool way outside his comfort zone, reluctantly getting involved and illegal activities and digging himself deeper into the hole. Kosco (Happy Anderson) is the comically large and tough guy he calls to take care of things for him, who has a lazy and borderline offensive secret with a reveal you can see coming a mile away. Jordan is depressed and stuck in the past. Rita is an insecure busybody. Each is painted with a broad brush, easily classified with a few vague, done-to-death details.
The characters that offer the most laughs are ironically the ones with the least screen time. Sammi (Oona Roche), a cashier Jay often interacts with, makes the most of her role, with her perenially bored customer service drawl and attraction to the deputy (Mohammed). Sweet pink-haired, sparkly-clad Cassie casually talking about graphic details of her affair with Andy Moore (Christopher Denham) offers some nice comedy too.
The relationship between Jordan and Rita is almost captivating. Hamm and Fey have been friends for years and worked together before, so the potential is there. There are even glimpses of a satisfying love story at the center of this film in the playful banter and adorable way in which Jordan tries to woo Rita. Sadly, it all ends up feeling stiff and hollow, as the movie fails to give us a real reason to care about them. It tells us we should be sad that Jordan’s wife died and that Rita’s ex-husband made her feel bad about herself, but we never actually feel it. Their courtship — and the petty, sloppy drama that creates conflict between them — is too generic and formulaic. Hamm and Fey have proven themselves to be excellent comedic and dramatic actors, but they simply go through the motions here, managing to create only small flickers of chemistry and compelling connection. All in all, the performances feel a bit phoned-in. These are roles they could each do in their sleep, and it feels like that’s exactly what they did for the most part: sleepwalked through the film’s 99-minute runtime.
'Maggie Moore(s)' Is a Pointless, Derivative Mess
Mystery films need a strong hook, and while Maggie Moore(s) has an interesting concept from its logline, it never delivers on the promise of its premise. The “aha!” moment never comes because there are no real twists or turns in which to be oohed and aahed by along the way. It doesn’t have the campy fun of something like Cocaine Bear nor the stylish intricacy of something like a Rian Johnson project. Instead, it feels stuck in a strange, bland limbo, unsure of what it wants to lean into and truly be. For a movie all about identities, this film lacks one.
Grade: D
Maggie Moore(s) is in theaters and on VOD starting June 16.
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