With her life crashing down around her, Linda attempts to navigate her child's mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.2/10
IMDb: 6.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.66/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 78
TMDB: 6.3/10
Director
Mary Bronstein
Production
A24, Central Pictures, Fat City, Bronxburgh
Cast
Rose Byrne, Conan O'Brien, A$AP Rocky, Danielle Macdonald, Delaney Quinn, Mary Bronstein, Ivy Wolk, Mark Stolzenberg, Manu Narayan, Christian Slater, Eva Kornet, Ella Beatty, Helen Hong, Daniel Zolghadri, Josh Pais, Ronald Bronstein, Lark White, Laurence Blum, Amy Judd Lieberman, Char Sidney
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A punishing, high-anxiety character study that turns maternal panic, medical uncertainty, and therapy into a full-frontal sensory assault. It sounds emotionally exhausting, but the craft, performance, and tonal audacity make it a standout for viewers who want something raw and uncompromising.
Best for
fans of intense psychological dramas
viewers who like anxiety-driven, immersive filmmaking
people drawn to thorny mother-child stories
audiences interested in darkly comic dread
fans of performance-first indie cinema
Skip if
you want a comforting or uplifting drama
you dislike stress-heavy, abrasive sound design
you prefer clear narrative answers and tidy catharsis
you are sensitive to depictions of illness, parental breakdown, or therapy conflict
Overview
Mary Bronstein’s return feels designed to leave a bruise. The film takes a familiar domestic crisis and pushes it into near-nightmare territory, using pressure-cooker staging, hostile interactions, and relentless sonic unease to trap us inside Linda’s unraveling mind. It’s the kind of movie that makes ordinary errands feel apocalyptic.
Worth noting
Rose Byrne is the engine here, giving a performance that has to carry panic, rage, shame, and exhaustion without ever seeming performative. The supporting players are used less as comfort than as friction, which keeps the film jagged and unstable in a way that fits its subject. Even the humor lands like a nervous tic.
Bottom line
What lingers most is the movie’s commitment to discomfort as a form of insight. It’s not interested in easy empathy or neat resolutions; it wants to show how caregiving, guilt, and institutional failure can corrode a person from the inside out. For the right viewer, that severity is exactly the point.
Top Letterboxd reviews
EinBen (3★) · 13829 likes
The Hamster to Lasagna cut was insane
joj66 (5★) · 12129 likes
The uncut gems for mothers
jwongdynasty (4★) · 11745 likes
What I imagine BetterHelp therapists are like
Karsten (4.5★) · 9582 likes
phenomenal , i’m gonna throw up
jonathan fujii (3.5★) · 8390 likes
Good movie! (i wanted to peel the skin off my face)
2011 · Drama, Thriller · 1h 53m · R · Curator 6.8/10 (710.7K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Peacock Premium, Philo, MUBI, OVID, Cineverse, Midnight Pulp, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
For viewers drawn to parental dread, guilt, and the emotional terror of caregiving under impossible circumstances.