Maudie (played by Sally Hawkins), a determined but fragile woman, is thrown unceremoniously out of her Nova Scotia home after it’s sold out from under her by her brother. Suddenly she must find work and a place to live on her own, although she has no experience seeking either. By luck, she bumps into Everett (Ethan Hawke), a reclusive and rough-hewn fishmonger living nearby, who has advertised for a housekeeper. She moves into his one-room shack against the complaints of her controlling family, and the two – yearning and bruised by the world in their own ways – begin to grow a kind of love between them. Maudie’s attempts to better the world around her through painting begins to attract the attention of more and more people; soon, the whole world will know Maudie. But can the couple survive that?

Based on the true story of noted folk artist Maud Lewis, Maudie is a poignant portrait of an unconventional life. Sympathetic without being sentimental, Maudie doesn’t shy away from the hard truths of human relationships. Love grows in brutal, inhospitable places, like a sapling forcing its way up through the frozen Nova Scotia ground. And you don’t have to be a prodigy or an MFA to appreciate art’s power to communicate and soothe.