Dancing in the dark

Maggie's Plan

Cine

What a delight! A screwball comedy in structure and spirit, though there's more melancholy and less slapstick than we associate with the genre.

I don't want to spoil too much, but I can say that what seems to be the titular plan turns out not to be, and what turns out to be is so far-fetched as to tweak the cynicism of the 21st-century filmgoer. But I for one willingly suspended my cynicism; it helps to have a triangle with Greta Gerwig and Julianne Moore as 2 sides. Ethan Hawke (John) is OK, too, but let's face it: both Maggie and Georgette could do better.

And two bonuses: a transit adventure to Outer New Haven on the long-neglected D13 and D5 buses, and a joke at the expense of my employer, Yale University Press.