Review: Madeline's Madeline

Image courtesy of Oscilloscope. 

There's been much debate in recent years regarding who should be telling others' stories - for example, there was an uproar when Scarlett Johansson was chosen to play the lead in "Ghost in the Shell" or, more recently, when that same actress dropped out of playing a trans man. Josephine Decker's often interesting, but just as frequently maddening, "Madeline's Madeline" concerns itself with such matters.

In the film, a young biracial girl named Madeline (Helena Howard) suffers from some sort of mental illness, which often materializes in tantrums, but occasionally more violent episodes, typically directed at her overbearing, concerned and slightly judgmental mother (Miranda July). Madeline gains some solace in an acting troupe with which she has become involved and finds herself under the tutelage by the troupe's leader, Evangeline (Molly Parker), who always gives the impression that she knows exactly what she wants out of her actors, but is clearly indecisive about her latest experimental play and preoccupied as a result of her pregnancy.

But Evangeline is taken by Madeline and the young girl quickly becomes the centerpiece of her attention - at first, to a loving degree, but later to an exploitative one. Evangeline is obviously fascinated by the troubled relationship between Madeline and her mother and coaxes her to use her personal life - scenes in which she and her mother have fought - for inspiration during the troupe's rehearsals.

A quick word on the rehearsals. One of the issues that I had with the film was the endless focus on watching the troupe rehearse. It felt as if Decker had been watching too much late 1960s to early 1970s Jacques Rivette films - in which acting troupes were constantly taking part in exercises, although it worked much better when the New Wave director did it - and, so, we must sit through scene after scene in which actors squirm around on floors making ooh and aah sounds or others in which they pretend to be animals. Madeline is often with taken with the urge to behave like a cat.

The film's in-your-face approach makes it feel both intimate and obtrusive. And at times, the picture feels as if its focus is as lost in the weeds as Evangeline's idea for her latest work. It's not until the end, which poses a suggestion that turns the rest of the film on its head in an interesting manner, that it finally all coheres. The film's strongest scenes are those in which it explores how Evangeline is exploiting Madeline's private traumas for the sake of her art, and the most extreme example of this results in a peculiar flight of fancy at the film's end that nearly makes up for all the troupe's acting exercises.

This is only the second film I've seen from Decker - I caught her equally interesting and exasperating "Butter on the Latch," but haven't seen "Thou Wast Mild and Lovely" - and I've had the same reaction to both films. She's clearly talented and possesses a unique visual style that has not, so far, been utilized to its maximum effect. On the other hand, I appreciate that an American filmmaker is producing such experimental work in an age when so little is left to the imagination. "Madeline's Madeline" didn't quite work for me, but there's more than enough to hold the interest of adventurous cinephiles.