Carrie Coon plays a woman lured into a cult in Guy Nattiv’s film, which explores themes of middle-aged identity, trauma, and female camaraderie in the early 1980s.

Directed by Guy Nattiv and co-written by Noa Berman Herzberg, "The Liberation" stars Carrie Coon as Rita Cooper, a depressed woman in early-1980s New Jersey. Rita, a Holocaust survivor and mother, becomes the target of a mysterious woman named Ricki, played by Lily James, who recruits her into a commune. The film follows two timelines as Rita’s daughters, played by Bella Ramsey and Odessa Young, attempt to rescue their mother from the group.

Plot and Character Dynamics

Rita is a bank employee living a monotonous life with her husband, Reuben, played by Tracy Letts. She meets Ricki at her workplace, where Ricki begins to manipulate Rita by exploiting her feelings of dissatisfaction and her past trauma. Ricki presents the commune as a space for female camaraderie and liberation, though her intentions are predatory.

Production and Performance

Carrie Coon portrays two versions of her character: the frazzled domestic Rita and the docile, commune-dwelling woman renamed Naia. The film, edited by Sabine Hoffman and Yuval Orr, uses a dual-timeline structure to show Rita’s descent into the cult and her daughters' subsequent efforts to save her. The cinematography by Fabian Gamper and Tudor Vladimir Panduru utilizes a grainy, early-1980s aesthetic to capture the story's intimate and tense atmosphere.

The Final Act

The film shifts into a thriller in its final act as the commune puts Rita’s diabetic daughter, Jo, in danger. This development forces a confrontation between the family members as they work to escape the commune’s influence.