In Guy Nattiv’s observant and harrowing film The Liberation, a simple question about carrying weight becomes the turning point for protagonist Rita Cooper. Based partially on Nattiv’s grandmother and other survivors, the story follows Rita, an early-1980s New Jersey woman played with extraordinary emotional depth by Carrie Coon. Rita leads a monotonous existence as a bank employee, wife to Reuben (Tracy Letts), and mother to Ella (Bella Ramsey) and Jo (Odessa Young). Privately, she struggles with depression and guilt related to her past as a Holocaust survivor, an identity she assumes for a video project.
Rita’s fragile equilibrium is disrupted by the arrival of Ricki (Lily James), a mysterious young woman at her workplace. James delivers what may be the finest performance of her career as the enigmatic cult leader, whose unsettling smile and piercing question—“When was the last time you saw the sunset on a beach?”—marks the beginning of Rita’s entrapment.
Unlike typical cult narratives centered on magnetic male predators, The Liberation explores a darker, more insidious dynamic involving female camaraderie. Ricki exploits Rita’s feelings of betrayal by her age and body, offering a false sanctuary among women who claim to understand her. The film posits that for a woman feeling her life has peaked without fulfillment, the promise of sisterhood and escape from societal expectations can be dangerously alluring.
Co-written by Noa Berman Herzberg, the film operates across two timelines, edited with clarity by Sabine Hoffman and Yuval Orr. Coon portrays two distinct versions of Rita: the frazzled, hesitant housewife in muted florals, and “Naia,” her commune alter ego, who appears peaceful yet alarmingly docile on a diet that includes hallucinogenic plants. Nattiv braids these timelines together, building tension through flashbacks that reveal how Ricki’s destructive intentions are disguised as friendship.
Cinematographers Fabian Gamper and Tudor Vladimir Panduru utilize grainy, intimate lensing that resembles archival footage, capturing the early-’80s aesthetic with lived-in production design and costuming. The film shifts gears in its final act into a conventional thriller when Jo, who is diabetic, is put in harm’s way by the commune, prompting a perilous rescue mission by her sister and mother. The result is an elegantly gripping conclusion to a patient film that laments the pain of an unfulfilled woman.
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