Our ‘Violet’ review was first published after the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.
A confident woman is an unstoppable woman in Justine Bateman’s feature-length directorial debut, Violet. Set in the fast-paced, male-dominated Hollywood film industry, one young studio executive is finally pushed to her breaking point and forced to confront a lifelong mental illness that has held her happiness hostage. Part video art, part exposure therapy, Violet is an untraditional film that dares to show the distressing inner turmoil that many people silently deal with every day.
Olivia Munn plays the titular character, a sensitive woman who is just coming to terms with the realization that her entire life has been shaped by fear. Flashbacks reveal that the first signs of verbal abuse started in childhood, and we all know by now that unless properly dealt with, childhood trauma follows us into adulthood. The wounds have resulted in a harsh inner critic (voiced by Justin Theroux) who Violet calls “the committee.” The committee spews negativity constantly, which causes her relationships–platonic and romantic–to suffer.
Up until that point, Violet wasn’t proactively trying to silence the committee, resulting in submissiveness that allows people to walk all over her, including her co-workers at the film production company she runs and her manipulative brother who lives out of state. The only comfort she finds is with her friend Red (Luke Bracey), a very handsome man who Violet has known for decades (thus, in her mind, rendering any sort of romantic relationship between the two unspeakable). Eventually Violet decides that she’s had enough of living by the committee’s criticism and discovers that freedom lies on the other side of fear.
Bateman’s bold approach to telling this story is seen in the video art-like quality of the film. Violet is designed to be an immersive experience for the viewer as if we’re living in Violet’s head while her intrusive thoughts build on top of each other and almost become too overbearing to withstand. Handwritten statements and video montages comprised of jarring quick cuts represent her racing inner thoughts, and set to a score by indie band VUM, Violet is purposefully disheveled and chaotic. Olivia Munn internalizes the character’s insecurities so honestly, her performance is raw and sympathetic.
Violet is an uncomfortable watch but that is only because it succeeds in its intention to place the audience inside the mind of Violet. If nothing else, it will reassure you that even the people who look like they have it all together on the outside could very well be struggling on the inside. No one has it all figured out, and despite Hollywood making you believe otherwise, that’s ok.
Distributed by Relativity, ‘Violet’ opens in theaters this Friday and is available on VOD November 9th.
