In the most stressful movie since Uncut Gems, Rose Byrne gives the single best performance I've seen all year.
A frazzled mother raising a child with a chronic illness, Linda just can't catch a break. Her husband (Christian Slater) just left on a two-month work trip. Her apartment has flooded. Between work, doctors appointments, and the many things she has to do just to keep her daughter alive, there's barely a moment to catch her breath, let alone enjoy a glass of wine or a joint. The frustrations and resentments mount, leading to outbursts that are by turns hilarious and horrifying.
Writer-director Mary Bronstein (who also plays the daughter's doctor) delivers moments that feel painfully real, even for those of us without kids. But when she veers into magical realism, the movie loses focus. The big, gaping hole that can't seem to get fixed in Linda's home stands in for the big, gaping hole inside her soul. But it's also occasionally a more literal representation of the hole in her daughter's stomach that delivers her nutrients every night from an IV. It gets messy, literally and metaphorically.
But Bronstein also deploys a filmmaking trick that keeps the intensity up, even when the film doesn't entirely connect emotionally. Her cinematographer Christopher Messina shoots almost the entire film in close-up and medium shots. There's rarely a shot without Linda's increasingly weathered face. And crucially, we only get one brief glimpse at Linda's daughter at the very end of the film. Her voice and beeping machines are ever-present, but keeping her off-screen works perfectly.
Occasionally Linda is offered help, but is often too caught up in her own anxieties to accept it. When she's at her wit's end, the people she's pushed away aren't there anymore. During a group therapy session, she explodes, delivering an absolutely heartbreaking monologue about the complex feelings of being a working mother and full-time caretaker. These are thoughts I'm sure all parents have had but rarely say out loud. Intentional or not, the film is also a damning indictment of our thoroughly awful healthcare system. It costs more than anywhere else in the world, yet still puts the burden of care on family who are often physically or emotionally incapable of providing the level of care needed.
Even when the movie goes a bit off the rails, Byrne remains an absolute force of nature. If the Academy had guts, they'd make sure she gets nominated for Best Actress.
