FESTIVAL REVIEW
The Liberation is an absorbing, competently made thriller drama anchored by strong performances from Carrie Coon and Bella Ramsey. Guy Nattiv once again explores a person drawn to a new community that seems to offer the freedom and belonging missing from their life, only to slowly reveal something far darker and more disturbing underneath.
It also marks his most personal work to date. Whereas Skin was dedicated to his grandfather, and Golda was loosely tied to his own Israeli background, The Liberation draws directly from his grandmother’s story, a Polish Holocaust survivor who struggled with depression before leaving her husband and family after becoming involved with an all female group led by a charismatic younger woman.
The film adapts this story into a drama thriller told across two timelines, one showing how Rita Cooper (Coon) gradually falls under the influence of Ricki (Lily James) and her secluded community of women, and another following Rita’s daughters, Ella (Ramsey) and Jo (Odessa Young), as they find their mother now fully immersed in the community and try to convince her to come back home, all while attempting to understand what could have driven her to abandon her entire family.
The structure keeps the story highly engaging for a while, slowly revealing its pieces and connecting what happened in the past with what we are seeing in the present. We come to understand what drew Rita toward this community, especially as it allows her to escape, at least temporarily, the pain she has carried for most of her life. There is no judgment there; little is initially asked in return, other than complete loyalty to its leader.
The film instead keeps us hooked through its mysteries, constantly suggesting there may be something more behind the cult and giving us reasons to keep watching. It doesn’t take long, however, for most of the story to click, and the film is not particularly interested in going further and providing a deeper study of Rita or the other women who follow Ricki. Ricki herself is played with mild charisma by Lily James, whose carefully performed empathy is enough to fool someone as vulnerable as Rita, but she never fully becomes a convincing cult leader. James feels too young and too understated to sell the idea of a woman capable of inspiring such devotion from a large group of followers.
More interesting is the dynamic between Rita and her daughter Ella, who watches much of this with eye-rolling skepticism while never losing her love for her mother. It is great to see Coon in a lead role, one originally meant for Naomi Watts (who instead came to TIFF with far worse roles). Coon captures both Rita’s emptiness and the depression that makes Ricki’s promises of liberation so appealing, while Bella Ramsey gives her best film performance to date, bringing some of the stubbornness and cynicism of Ellie from The Last of Us but mixing it with far more vulnerability than that role usually allows.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The film ends on a very strong note, which makes up for a more meandering second act. On the whole, The Liberation is not particularly insightful about its subjects, especially when it comes to the cult and why so many women would surrender themselves to it, but it remains an engrossing film that keeps you invested in its characters and wondering what will happen next.
- 1Minotaur
- 2Wild Horse Nine
- 3The Man I Love
- 4Club Kid
- 5The Unknown
- 17The Liberation#17 of 39
- Where to watch
- Coming soon
- Where to watch
- Coming soon
- Original title
- The Liberation
- Director
- Guy Nattiv
- Cast
- Carrie Coon, Lily James, Bella Ramsey, Odessa Young, Tracy Letts, Jaime Ray Newman, Siobhan Williams, Morgan Taylor Campbell
- Screenwriter
- Guy Nattiv, Noa Berman-Herzberg
- Composer
- Dascha Dauenhauer
- Cinematography
- Tudor Vladimir Panduru, Fabian Gamper
- Editor
- Sabine Hoffman, Yuval Orr
- Country
- Language
- English