Maze

While flipping channels yesterday, I came across this movie. It immediately drew me in, and I found myself forgetting about everything around me. The character development and intense love story struck a chord in my whole being. I just fell in love with Lyle, and have so much empathy for how he lived and what he experienced. This was the most touching movie I have seen in a long while. It was not written just for the sake of telling a love story, but obviously written to tell a story about the souls of two people who fall madly in love. A learning experience about human nature and the human spirit awaits you in 'Maze.'

When I come across a movie that is directed by and stars a former TV actor who has only done sporadic film work, I worry that it is a vanity piece and not worth the price of the popcorn accompaniment.

I am always happy when I turn out to be wrong.

Maze is a very nice little film. Not great. Not staggering. It is just quite good. It concerns the flowering relationship between an afflicted artist and the girlfriend of one of his buddies: how and why it happens, the inner turmoil that results and the logical conclusion to the relationship of the three main characters. It doesn't stray from the focus on the main characters and in the course of the film we see and understand how they came to be where they are. To be honest, I have always considered Laura Linney and Rob Morrow to be only adequate actors. They are pleasant enough to watch, but I have never expected much from either. Even with Linney's recent critical acclaim, I didn't expect much from her in this film. Again I was wrong about both actors. Morrow does quite a good job giving us a character afflicted with Tourette's without it either being soooo distracting as to be annoying or looking like a histrionic excorcism. I felt that he was able to show a character that was crippled by his place in society but still letting us see that underneath was a basically good person. And letting us see that good person makes it believable that Laura Linney's character would love him, despite his disease's symptoms. Linney as well gave a performance of growing depth and understanding. We see her character move from genuinely liking Morrow as a comfortable friend to loving him as the true partner she wanted all along. We see it in her eyes when she looks at him, when they work and read together and in the very simple act of taking his hand and quietly calming him while sitting in an audience at a recital.

If you enjoy simple, focused, character movies, I would suggest checking Maze out at your local video store.

An artist suffering from Tourette's Syndrome falls in love with the pregnant girlfriend of his best friend while the latter's away. Morrow is a pretty good actor, but the film is undone by his pedestrian efforts as director and writer. The script is meant to be inspirational, but the execution is dull and eventually sappy. The direction is hackneyed. The symptoms of the disease are on display so often that it's a distraction; one waits for the next attack to manifest itself rather than focusing on the story. The only good thing about this tedious and clichéd film is Linney, who is terrific in just about anything she does.

We also liked this film very much. Morrow works hard, as an actor AND as a director, to help you see the world thru Lyle Maze's eyes. It's fascinating to watch him work -- when he's sketching, he becomes totally engrossed as an artist & his spasms stop. Then the "real world" intervenes. & his behavior gets worse & worse the more he tries to control it.

But the name of this film is totally wrong. Maybe it's based on a true story (the credits have a reference to National Public Radio but don't provide any detail), nevertheless, calling it MAZE is very misleading & won't help people find it. So if YOU saw it & YOU liked it, do your part to spread the word!

"Maze" tells of a trio of young adults with one being an artist with Tourette's syndrome, Lyle Maze (Morrow)...oh, and a baby too. Slick, fresh, and a different kind, a better kind of love story, "Maze" integrates Tourette's with the other aspects of the film but the film is not about Tourette's. It's about love. Not romance. Love.

A finely crafted piece, "Maze" spends the whole run time developing the characters and their relationships while explaining nothing, refusing to be a typical Hollywood no-brainer by spelling everything out with sky writing. Rather it assumes the audience is intelligent and empathic enough to understand the thoughts and feelings of the characters...something more often seen in foreign films. The antithesis of schmaltz, this hip and light-hearted drama is easy to get into, runs quick, and has a great ending. Kudos to Morrow for this wonderful film. ("Maze" also has the best birth scene I've seen in a movie.)