From Omeleto.
A woman hits her limit.
MAGGIE’S NOT OKAY is used with permission from Vance Smith. Learn more at https://instagram.com/maggies_not_okay_film.
Maggie is a nice, kind woman who is always helpful to everyone: her co-workers, her family, everyone. Even her boyfriend James tells her she is being taken advantage of and needs to stand up for herself, though he himself doesn’t always respect her preferences. When she finds a lost cat, Maggie offers to return the cat to its owner, Rachel. But Rachel is away on a fun weekend and takes advantage of Maggie’s generosity to rope her into catsitting.
Tired of being treated like a doormat and fed up with disrespect, Maggie finally pushes back. She discovers what it feels like to say no — as well as the power she’s denied herself for too long.
Directed by Vance Smith from a script written by Mouzam Makkar — who also plays the titular character — this witty yet emotionally perceptive short comedy is a sharply playful portrait of how a compulsive people-pleaser shakes off her need for approval — and finds humor in how she goes a little too far in shaking off those chains. Maggie is kind, helpful and always says yes with a smile, an archetypal nice-girl pushover. But when that helpfulness is taken advantage of, she flips, adding an unpredictable spin to an increasingly off-kilter comedy.
In its form and storytelling, the film is something of a shapeshifter, mirroring the arc of its main character. At the start, there’s an even-toned brightness to the look and feel, as we watch Maggie in the depths of her people-pleaser mode. When party-girl Rachel blithely takes advantage of Maggie’s goodwill to wrangle some cheap pet-sitting out of her, Maggie finally snaps at how little she is valued, and the tone shifts toward darker, more noirish lighting and color, especially as Maggie begins to enjoy the power of refusal — which turns into a love of power altogether.
The film has fun with Maggie’s transformation, finding dark humor as a her buried resentment — and Maggie’s inner Don Corleone — comes out. The tonal shift is funny, but it’s also emotionally true, as Maggie’s shadow side comes to the fore: ruthless, conniving and even taking pleasure in throwing her weight around. It’s tremendously fun to see actor Mouzam Makkar embrace Maggie’s dark side and new criminal-like persona. The rest of the cast — actors Behzad Dabu as her disbelieving cat-adoring boyfriend and Clare Cooney as the breezily obnoxious Rachel — also finds the balance between comedy and dramatic disbelief at Maggie’s change. They perhaps don’t take Maggie seriously at first — until she makes them realize just how serious she is about never being taken advantage of again.
Entertaining, amusing and mischievous, MAGGIE’S NOT OKAY is a tonal high-wire act, but it finds cohesion and even emotional resonance by staying true to Maggie’s arc as a character. It may have fun with Maggie’s journey of self-discovery, blending dark comedy with hints of crime drama, but it is also a clever, witty observation on the difficulty that many have in setting boundaries, respecting limits and saying no. It observes how hard it is to summon the self-respect to finally put one’s foot down — and has tremendous fun in how far some will go to claim some respect.
