Synopsis
Madeline's Madeline (2018) is Josephine Decker's art-house drama, worth watching online on iFILM for Helena Howard's breakout alone. Sixteen-year-old Madeline is caught between two women: her anxious mother and the theater director who sees raw talent in her.
She joins an experimental physical-theater troupe where rehearsals run on bodies, improvisation and exposed nerves. The director, Evangeline, urges Madeline to feed her most private material into the show — the volatile bond with her mom, the swings of her own mind. The more the teenager pours herself onto the stage, the harder it gets to tell where the role stops and her real life starts. Molly Parker and Miranda July play the adults pulling her in opposite directions.
Decker shoots from inside her heroine's head: jittery cuts, soft focus, sound pushed to the edge, so dissociation is something you feel rather than watch. This isn't plot-driven cinema but a jangled sensory piece about an artist mining someone else's pain. One for fans of bold independent film. Stream Madeline's Madeline (2018) online on iFILM.
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