\u00bbThere is an abyss between the mother and the child.\u00ab Julia Kristeva<\/p>\n
Linda (Rose Byrne), mother and therapist, drifts through a feverish spiral of exhaustion, guilt and absurd obligations. Her husband (Christian Slater), a \u00bbcaptain at sea\u00ab, exists mostly as a disembodied voice on the phone; her chronically ill daughter is largely offscreen, reduced to body fragments and a relentlessly demanding register scratching at Linda\u2019s psyche. Every attempt to do the right thing fails. Byrne \u2013 Golden Globe and Berlinale winner, Oscar-nominated for this role \u2013 carries the film with ferocious physical precision, her face and gestures registering strain before language ever can. Bronstein, herself actor, mother, screenwriter and author of feminist theory, shapes a hallucinatory \u00bbmother-on-the-verge\u00ab horror, where care becomes compulsion and love shades into self-erasure. With jittery camerawork, fragmented montage and unrelenting rhythm, motherhood becomes something both deeply familiar and alien: a bond so consuming it borders on madness. Surreal set pieces \u2013 a floating ceiling hole, Montauk\u2019s foggy coastline, a wayward hamster \u2013 tilt reality into the uncanny. Balancing tragedy and dark humour, the film probes the grey zone between care, devotion and self-sacrifice \u2013 intensely personal yet universally resonant. Motherhood here is merciless, punishing, relentless, yet (com)passionate in its potential.<\/p>\n