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Madeline’s Madeline
***
Dir: Josephine Decker
Starring: Molly Parker, Miranda July and Helena Howard
(15, USA, 1hr 34mins)
What’s going on in Madeline’s Madeline? The film begins with the blurry image of a woman saying to Madeline (Helena Howard) that she‘s not a cat, she’s inside a cat and it‘s a metaphor, not her emotions, setting the tone. Bi-racial Madeline is 16 going on 17 and may or may not be schizophrenic or have another psychotic disorder. We learn from her flighty, nervous mother Regina (Miranda July) that Madeline was in a psychiatric ward for six weeks and is supposed to be on medication.
She’s in an experimental theatre group, perhaps for therapy. For Evangeline (Molly Parker), the pseudo-hip, avant-garde director isn’t sure what message she wants to put across (the current project looks to be animal-themed), and one wonders what writer-director Josephine Decker is trying to say also. Evangeline and Regina seemingly are in a battle for the girl. Neither of them turns out to be that stable, either. Regina may have less screws loose than her daughter; she’s certainly more loose than Evangeline. Mom’s over-protective, understandably so, but wants to keep Madeline in a too-tight cocoon. She feeds her like a baby and while driving, gives a weird talk about sex that’s ineffective. Even stranger, Regina keeps Madeline’s father’s basement of porn-recreation as a shrine. In the hope of his return?
Madeline tells her director-mentor of a dream where she struck her mom with a hot iron. With out-of-focus, shaky cinematography by Ashley Connor, non-diegetic dialogue and sound that signifies (?) Madeline’s episodes, was it only a dream, reality or wishful thinking? We do witness Madeline ripping out a chunk of Regina’s hair and hitting her. Not nice. She knows exactly what buttons to push, and Regina’s rightfully terrified of her. Evangeline tells her protégé she dreamt Madeline was her daughter and says, “You get my work like no one else does.” The teacher asks if she feels safe with Regina. What’s she playing at? When her prescription runs out and she doesn’t get any pills for over a week, Madeline has a mini-breakdown. It’s prophetic that the pupil acts out a cat so well – furry and cuddly one moment, claws out the next – because she turns the tables on Evangeline when she finds out she’s turned Madeline’s unstable life into the basis for her play.
A problem is that none of the three come off as very likeable, and in turn, it‘s hard to be moved. There are moments of sympathy – a scene where Madeline thinks the group has thrown her a birthday party and when Regina sits through her daughter’s improvisation in front of the actors. Performances are solid all-round and we’ll be seeing more of newcomer Howard (who’s frightening and vulnerable). “I am being myself,” Madeline informs Evangeline, but the viewer doesn’t see that because Decker doesn’t delve deep enough so that we know her better. Is it OK to go off your meds and everything will be sunshine? The film would have been more effective had it been longer and used this material as a starting point. It’s too ambiguous but a good try.
words RHONDA LEE REALI
Madeline’s Madeline is out now in selected cinemas and streaming on Mubi