Maggie's Plan (Rebecca Miller, 2015)

Travis Fimmel and Greta Gerwig in Maggie's Plan

Maggie: Greta Gerwig
John: Ethan Hawke
Georgette: Julianne Moore
Tony: Bill Hader
Felicia: Maya Rudolph
Guy: Travis Fimmel

Director: Rebecca Miller
Screenplay: Rebecca Miller
Based on a story by Karen Rinaldi
Cinematography: Sam Levy
Production design: Alexandra Schaller
Film editing: Sabine Hoffman
Music: Michael Rohatyn

Director-screenwriter Rebecca Miller keeps the comedy in Maggie's Plan in check, so that scenes that might have been hilarious wind up amusing, and scenes that might have been amusing take on an edge of melancholy. In the end, the film feels a bit overburdened by the necessity of working out the titular plan: a career woman who, in midlife crisis, decides to have a child with a sperm donor. That's the contemporary equivalent of the kind of formulaic dilemma that used to spin the plots of Doris Day's movies. As Maggie is going through her plan to inseminate herself with sperm donated by the agreeable, if somewhat oddball Guy, she manages to fall for a married man, John, who is at odds with his wife, Georgette. This leads to a comic scene that I don't think I've ever encountered in another film: Having just inseminated herself, Maggie hears the doorbell and crabwalks her way to answer it, only to have a rather messy accident when she stands up. It's John, of course, there to proclaim his love for her and to sleep with her. We jump ahead three years: John and Maggie are married and have a little girl. But as their marriage goes sour, and we realize that John and Georgette were really meant for each other after all, another plan is introduced: Georgette and Maggie plot to undo what has been done. Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, and Julianne Moore are marvelous performers, of course. But there's something off about Miller's touch, so that the humor is lost in the mechanisms of the plot. The ending kicker, however, in which Maggie realizes that Guy, and not John, is the actual father of the child, is nicely done.

Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen, 2015)

Nessun maggior dolore / Che ricordarsi del tempo felice / Nella miseria -- There's no greater sorrow than remembering happy times in misery. What was true of Paolo and Francesca, Dante's lovers in hell, is also true of 11-year-old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) in Inside Out. This extraordinarily clever Pixar animated movie, written by Docter, Del Carmen, Meg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley, takes an ancient premise and does wonderful things with it. Though it purports to be a whimsical treatment of modern psychological theories about the role of emotions in the formation of personality, it's a kind of moral allegory, not unlike the moral fables of all eras, including John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Riley and her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) have moved to San Francisco from Minnesota. The shock of adjusting to a new home and a new school plunges Riley into misery, made worse by her remembrances of the happy times when she felt secure, had friends, and was a star on her hockey team. Her emotions -- Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) -- lose control of her personality, and things begin to fall apart. It's an astute and original (despite its ancient precedents) look at the way we learn to face life, brilliantly animated and skillfully voiced by a great cast.