"Bronstein's film-her first since her début feature, " Yeast " (2008)-boasts its own version of that line. "I'm one of those people who's not supposed to be a mom," a mother named Linda (Rose Byrne) laments. Her young daughter (Delaney Quinn) has a chronic gastrointestinal illness, and her husband, a ship captain, is away at sea. In the space of several fraught days, an already difficult situation is compounded by nightmarish setbacks."
"An enormous hole opens up in the ceiling of Linda's apartment, flooding the place and forcing her and her daughter to relocate to a motel. Linda, who is a therapist, must balance her job with the inevitably time-consuming repairs, which grind to a halt when a contractor has a family emergency. (Such emergencies are legion in this movie.) Linda also drags her daughter to a clinic for regular treatments, none of which seem to do any good."
Mary Bronstein's dark comedy centers on Linda, a mother caring for a young daughter with a chronic gastrointestinal illness while her ship-captain husband is at sea. A series of escalating domestic crises—an enormous hole that floods their apartment, stalled repairs, motel relocation, and repeated medical setbacks—complicate caregiving. Linda, a practicing therapist, juggles work responsibilities with time-consuming repairs and frequent clinic visits. She faces scolding from medical staff and logistical obstacles that intensify stress. The film aligns with a trend in contemporary American cinema portraying motherhood as brutal and validating candid expressions of maternal ambivalence.
Read at The New Yorker
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