The Liberation

It’s the early 1980s: Rita Cooper (Carrie Coon) is a closed-off mother of two who works as a bank executive, unable to come to grips with her traumatic history. At the bank one day, she meets the radiant Ricki (Lily James) who invites Rita to join her women’s self-empowerment group. Discovering a new-found freedom, Rita soon comes to depend on Ricki and leaves her family behind to join a cult-like commune in the forest. But when her daughters arrive to rescue her, Rita must choose between the new “spiritual” life she’s found and the loved ones she’s abandoned.

Carrie Coon, the veteran Chicago Steppenwolf stage actor (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Bug) and award-winning star of film and TV (Gone Girl, The Gilded Age) delivers one of the year’s most extraordinary performances, fully transforming both psychologically and physically, all the while superbly conveying the weight of Rita’s harrowing past. Oscar-winning director Guy Nattiv (Skin) crafts a compelling and highly complex psychological thriller, rooted in questions about leaders, beliefs, and identities that can lead to liberation or entrapment.