Madeline's Madeline

Madeline's Madeline centers on a teenage girl caught between two worlds that keep bleeding into each other. Madeline is a member of a demanding physical theater troupe led by Evangeline, a director who sees raw talent in her and pushes her to draw on her inner life and her difficult relationship with her mother for the work. At home, her mother Regina watches her daughter with worry, convinced that Madeline's fragile mental state needs care and treatment. On stage, the same girl appears powerful and unpredictable. As the rehearsals intensify, the boundary between the role and Madeline's own life dissolves, and the conflict spreads beyond the workshop into the lives of all three women.

Josephine Decker directed and wrote the film, which was produced by Elizabeth Rao and Krista Parris. It was her second feature, arriving before Shirley and The Sky Is Everywhere and later Chasing Summer. Helena Howard plays Madeline, with Molly Parker as Evangeline and Miranda July as Regina; the credited cast numbers 33 and the crew 99. The film runs 94 minutes.

Released in August 2018, the film drew a 7.7/10 critics' rating from 126 reviews, notably higher than its audience scores of 6.3/10 on IMDb from 4,400 votes and 5.9/10 on TMDB from a much smaller pool of 110 votes. That gap suggests reviewers responded more strongly to its fragmented style than general viewers did.