Movies & Mirrors: Maye in “I Will Follow”

Submission: Stephanie Fields, ReadingFields

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Maye looks into her flawless reflection as she applies the nude brown lipstick in the same manner her aunt taught her: direct, smooth, confident.

Transitions. I’ve never been good with them. I moved around a lot as a child, so I’ve learned how to not get attached, but once I do I am hesitant, if not downright reluctant to let go. So when I found myself transitioning to a newly college graduate and a newly single woman at the same time, you can imagine the kicking and screaming and crying it took to get through.

But transitions are the crux of any good story. If a character remains static and forgoes any shift or growth then there is no story, for it is through the conflict of transitioning from whom one was to whom one becomes that we learn the greatest lessons. Janie’s transition from a naive girl to a confident woman in Their Eyes Were Watching God taught me about the painfully glorious journey toward self-acceptance. Maye Fisher’s transition from selfless caregiver to a pseudo homeless woman  in Ava Duvernay’s, I Will Follow, taught me the possibilities of beginning again.

Maye Fisher is in the middle of one of the hardest transitions everyone will experience at one time or another, losing a loved-one. That loss not only forces her to leave the house she’s lived in for a year with her late aunt, but it propels her into the frighteningly vast space of possibilities. The running, implicit, question throughout the film, for Maye, is where to go from here. She weighs her options with a man she probably should have left a long time ago, and with a man she probably should have held on to. When either of those directions prove to be dead-ends she is left with herself.

“I would take care of you because you’re mine. Who’s going to take care of me?”

As Maye completes packing up the house there is no clear resolve as to where she’s headed. The ending is as open as her options. My favorite scene of the film is when Maye sits in a now empty bathroom and begins filming a makeup tutorial for YouTube. In this moment Maye has returned to doing what she loves, but from a completely different perspective. She is not only adapting to new technology, she is adapting to life without the woman she so deeply admired. There is no kicking and screaming—though there is some crying—Maye is not resistant to change. She welcomes the inevitability of transition and walks into that unknown space of the future with some self-assuredness and a flawless contour to match.

“She’s gone. It’s just me here now. And that’s going to have to be ok.”

We are guaranteed no security in life. However, as long as we follow our heart, and the lessons of those who’ve come before us, we can manage life’s spontaneity. When Maye shuts the door on the empty house, I am not worried about her. I am not afraid that she will come undone. Maye exhibits a vulnerability many struggle with and, while she has suffered a great loss, it is that vulnerability and receptiveness to the ebb and flow of life that guarantees she will, indeed, be ok. Characters like Maye remind me of the resilience and capabilities of my own spirit. No matter how many times I get knocked down I know, for certain, that I am always going to get back up.