TIFF Review: 'Maggie's Plan' Starring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, And Julianne Moore

Life is unpredictable, love is complicated and will make you sick with happiness, and nauseous from despair, and children will change everything you know about being an adult in an instant. And try as you might, there is nothing you can control about what fate may have laying in wait for you around the next corner. However, Maggie (Greta Gerwig) is determined to make her own happiness, rather than wait for circumstance to serve it up for her. As the title for writer/director Rebecca Miller’s latest suggests, her character is doing what she can to play both sides of the metaphorical checkers board, but she’ll soon learn that life is more like a chess game where you’re consistently three moves behind.

Successful in her career, with a teaching gig at The New School, Maggie is unlucky when it comes to relationships, lamenting to her ex-boyfriend and best pal Tony (Bill Hader) that her relationships never last more than six months. However, she wants to start a family, and she’s not just...