Madeline's Madeline

Josephine Decker : 2018

Sometimes Madeline is a cat, sometimes a turtle. But even when she's Madeline, it's hard to tell if she's just playing the role of Madeline. In the eyes of her anxious mother, she is a vulnerable creature whose obvious mental disorder requires care and medical treatment. But on stage, at the theatre workshop run by the extremely demanding, sometimes even reckless Evangeline, Madeline is strong, impressive – a force of nature. The film sounds out both the healing and potentially destructive powers of performance, what happens when you play around with roles and identities. Like Madeline herself, Madeline's Madeline remains ambiguous. Do we really need to define what's a mental illness and what is simply the rebelliousness of a teenager? How do we draw the line between love and overprotectiveness? In a legitimate artistic process in which everyone is giving and taking, where lies the threshold to exploitation? Does creativity even exist without destruction? Josephine Decker's third feature premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2018, and had its international premiere in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.