Madeline's Madeline

At the center of Josephine Decker's intense drama about identity, creativity, and power dynamics in artistically influenced relationships is Madeline (Helena Howard)—a sensitive teenager with mental health issues. The young woman blossoms in an experimental theater troupe led by the charismatic Evangeline (Molly Parker). The troupe develops a play based on improvisations inspired by Madeline's own emotions and conflicts, particularly her tense relationship with her overprotective mother (Miranda July). As the film progresses, the boundaries between art and reality become increasingly blurred. Evangeline begins to use Madeline's personal suffering—her mental illness and family tensions—as material for the performance, leading to an existential power struggle. Meanwhile, Madeline struggles to maintain her own voice as her identity is reshaped by her director's artistic vision. The film captivates with its visually experimental aesthetics and the impressive imagination of young actress Helena Howard—in her first film role—which critics have hailed as one of the most outstanding performances of the 2010s. Director and screenwriter Josephine Decker (“Shirley”) stages an intense, almost psychological portrait of a young woman in search of self-determination, while at the same time questioning the exploitative structures of the film and theater scene—and who actually owns a story? "Though “Madeline’s Madeline” runs barely an hour and a half, it packs an epic’s worth of expressive detail, imaginative incident, emotional variety and intensity, and aesthetic invention. [...] In the role of Madeline, Howard delivers a performance that is one of the most distinctive, most varied, and most extreme in its expressive array and technical power, of any teen performer in the history of cinema. [...] Howard’s performance, and Decker’s film, are similarly historical achievements." (Richard Brody, in: The New Yorker)