Actress Carrie Coon takes on a challenging new role as an unexpected cult member in director Guy Nattiv’s deeply personal film, The Liberation, which draws inspiration from his own grandmother’s experience as a Holocaust survivor who joined a cult in the 1980s. The film, making its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival before a December release by Bleecker Street, explores themes of trauma, autonomy, and the complex human search for belonging and enlightenment, challenging preconceived notions about who might fall prey to such groups. Nattiv, an Academy Award winner, spent a decade bringing this intimate narrative to the screen, grappling with the emotional weight of his family’s history.
A Decade-Long Journey to the Screen
For filmmaker Guy Nattiv, The Liberation represents the culmination of a decade-long endeavor to create his most personal cinematic work to date. The director, acclaimed for his Academy Award-winning short film Skin and its subsequent feature adaptation, as well as the Golda Meir biopic Golda, embarked on a journey to tell a story profoundly influenced by his own family. His grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, joined a charismatic cult in her middle age during the 1980s, eventually leaving her family in Israel to follow its female leader to the United States, where she later passed away.
Nattiv was a young child when his grandmother first became involved with the cult, attending its various activities which included talks, seminars, and free dancing sessions. He recalls being occasionally brought along to these events, though he lacked a full understanding of their significance at the time. "I remember they took me out of school for seminars to dance with other people in a hotel room and stuff like that," Nattiv recounted, highlighting the early, disorienting exposure to this formative experience.
Years after his grandmother’s departure for the U.S. and her eventual death, Nattiv, by then a film school graduate, revisited her story. He immersed himself in her diaries and letters, meticulously researching the cult. This extensive investigation led him to travel to the site of its former compound and connect with relatives of other members. Despite this profound engagement, Nattiv initially felt emotionally unprepared to tackle the narrative. "I wasn’t emotionally developed enough to dive in," he admitted, acknowledging the deep personal resonance of the subject matter.
During the interim period, Nattiv’s career flourished, earning him an Oscar and allowing him to start his own family, welcoming two children. These significant life and filmmaking experiences provided the maturity and perspective he needed to finally feel ready to confront the story. However, the emotional toll remained potent. When he eventually sat down to write the screenplay, Nattiv suffered a panic attack that necessitated a hospital visit. "I felt my grandmother. I felt her misery. I felt how she was torn, and the darkness of it," he later realized, connecting his physical distress to the lingering trauma and complex emotions surrounding his grandmother’s life.
The Narrative Engine: Empathy for a Complex Survivor
This profound empathy for a woman who endured the darkest chapter of the 20th century, only to seek personal salvation in a misguided direction, serves as the driving force behind The Liberation. The film is slated for an awards-qualifying run in December, following its prestigious debut at the Telluride Film Festival. Carrie Coon, who portrays Rita, the character inspired by Nattiv’s grandmother, recognized this compassionate core from her initial conversations with the director and her reading of the script. "What I felt from Guy in our initial conversations, and also in the script, was his compassion for his grandmother," Coon noted.
While deeply rooted in Nattiv’s family history, The Liberation also takes significant artistic liberties, crafted as a "what if" scenario. This approach allowed the filmmaker to explore motivations, character arcs, and actions that diverged from real-life events, enriching the narrative’s dramatic potential. Set in the 1980s, the film follows Rita, a Holocaust survivor leading an unfulfilling life in suburban New Jersey. She balances a job at a bank with caring for her aging father, all while raising her own family. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she divorces her husband, played by Coon’s real-life partner Tracy Letts, and distances herself from her young adult children, portrayed by Bella Ramsey and Odessa Young. Rita’s new path leads her to join a new-age community led by Ricki (Lily James), a charismatic woman.
The cult, depicted in the film, engages in practices such as fasting, hallucinogen use, and the severance of communication with outside loved ones. The dramatic core of the story unfolds when Rita’s daughters follow her to the cult’s isolated compound, determined to extricate her. This confrontation forces Rita to make an agonizing choice between her biological family and the woman she believes holds the key to her personal enlightenment and happiness. The film delves into the psychological and emotional complexities of this decision, portraying the powerful allure of cults for individuals seeking meaning and connection.
Challenging Stereotypes: The Unexpected Cult Member
Nattiv challenges the common societal cliché that only "weak people" join cults. He emphasizes his grandmother’s resilience, stating, "My grandmother wasn’t weak at all. Anyone who survived the Holocaust and continued life is, for me, a hero." He describes her as the "pillar" of his family before her departure. The director champions the film’s portrayal of his grandmother as a strong woman actively seeking happiness, especially given the socio-cultural context of the 1980s when formal support systems for Holocaust survivors were largely nonexistent, forcing them to navigate their trauma independently.
Carrie Coon, whom Nattiv praises as "the Gena Rowlands of our time," embraced the opportunity to embody such a multifaceted character. She found Rita’s journey, recovering strength while simultaneously undergoing profound self-sublimation, to be a compelling paradox. "She somehow both recovers her strength of character and also entirely sublimates herself. I just found that tension to be really difficult to understand and pull apart and also deeply, deeply human," Coon reflected, highlighting the profound psychological depth of her role.
To prepare for her portrayal of Rita, Coon engaged in extensive research. She watched hours of Nattiv’s grandmother’s testimony for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center and listened to numerous testimonials from other Polish women who survived the Holocaust via the Shoah Foundation. Her preparation also included watching documentaries about cults and listening to interviews with survivors. Coon observed a recurring trait among those who had been drawn into cults: "A lot of them were obviously very intelligent. These are smart people, and what they share is that they are seekers." This insight underscores the film’s message that susceptibility to cults is not a marker of weakness or lack of intelligence, but often a profound search for meaning.
The Female Cult Leader and Modern Representation
While popular culture is saturated with stories about cults and cult-like figures, ranging from scripted dramas to a seemingly endless stream of documentaries, the portrayal of a female cult leader remains a relative rarity. Lily James’s character, Ricki, in The Liberation, offers a nuanced depiction. As conceived by Nattiv and co-writer Noa Berman-Herzberg, Ricki is not presented as an outright savior, nor are her motivations entirely villainous. Nattiv explains the distinction: "I think that most men that lead cults are only about one thing: Domination. It’s toxic, toxic men who are leading, usually with sexual domination, and there’s nothing really else than that." He contrasts this with Ricki, who in the movie, "has liberated Rita. She made her open up. She gave her an added value. So it’s not only bad."
Coon, with a touch of humor, added her perspective on the scarcity of female cult leaders in media. "If we haven’t seen female cult leaders portrayed in the media, it’s not because they’re not out there. It’s because of all the other problems of representation that happen in film," she stated, pointing to broader issues within the industry regarding diverse portrayals. This commentary highlights the film’s contribution to expanding the scope of narrative possibilities, particularly in challenging gendered archetypes within cinematic storytelling.
After a decade of dedicated effort to bring his vision to fruition, Nattiv, with the support of Bleecker Street and producers Julia Lebedev and Eddie Vaisman of Sight Unseen, commenced filming. Production took place in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, with the McLean Mill National Historic Site serving as the cult’s compound. As The Liberation finally reaches audiences, the director anticipates that the film will ignite important conversations surrounding trauma, personal autonomy, and the complex pathways to healing.
Carrie Coon expresses a hope that, despite the extraordinary nature of the choices depicted on screen, audiences will find ample relatable elements within Rita’s story. "I think it’s really easy for us to stand outside of it and say, ‘There’s no way that would ever happen to me,’" Coon observed. She cautioned against such an assumption, concluding, "It’s an act of hubris to think that you might not, yourself, be taken in by something. We would do well not to hold ourselves outside of that possibility." This powerful message serves as a reminder of the universal human vulnerabilities the film so poignantly explores.
