YMMV / What Maisie Knew

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Beale leaving Maisie for the last time in the film. Did he leave because he felt that he wasn't a good enough father or was it because Maisie was becoming too much of a burden to him and decided to depart for his own needs. He did mention London as being dark and full of rain, presumably as a way to dissuade his daughter from joining him, suggesting the latter. That said, he does show genuine concern for Maisie and the two share a hug before departing, which links to the former.
  • Also in the film, Susanna's final meeting with Maisie. While they do have a bittersweet moment and that Maisie is shown happily living with Margo and Lincoln afterwards, it's left up to the air whether Susanna has cut off from Maisie despite each other's affection or if they will continue to meet up. That said, even if they didn't do a good job looking after her, it's clear that Maisie loves her biological parents, so there is a possibility that at least Susanna would make an effort to keep in contact with her daughter.
• Broken Base: Is the film a worthy adaptation to the book, especially given that a common consensus about Henry James is that his works are considered hard to adapt.
• Moe: It's hard to deny that Maisie is adorable.
• She Really Can Act: Given that this is her first major film role, it's all the more impressive to see Onata Aprile play the title character with a lot of emotional nuance and insecurity about herself. Evidently, Onata's performance won her awards from the Newport Beach Film Festival and Women Film Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Achievement (Acting) and Best Young Actress respectively.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: In the film version, nearly every main character gets some sort of screen time to flesh out much of their characterization... except Beale. While his conflict towards Susanna remains an important impetus, he turns out to be the least significant out of the story and is mostly there when something about Susann or Margo is involved. It's telling that in the climax, Beale is the only main character who is absent, as he goes away to London due to his inability to look after Maisie.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: For the film version, one might get the impression that because the central character is a little girl, the story would be somewhat light in tone. And then you realize the book that the film is based upon is in no way a children's book, and that the film itself has a lot of depressing moments and a decent amount of swearing.
• The Woobie: When this book/movie is about neglect, loneliness and sadness from not being given parental love and being caught in-between a pair of angry parents who hate each other and demand that they be given custody to their child, it's pretty clear Maisie is in the center of all this. She has to witness her parents describing each other spitefully and, in the novel, see their daughter as a prize that they must win from the other. Even when in their company, they barely spend any quality time with her, which leaves Maisie despondent and desperate to be loved and looked after. While the film softens the parents up, it isn't enough, what with her being all alone one night in a New York Street in one of the most depressing and frightening scenes in the movie. At the end of it all, anyone would want to give Maisie a cuddle for how much she goes through.