Natalie Portman takes a detailed look at the complexities of motherhood in Lady in the Lake, now streaming on Apple TV+. https://apple.co/_LadyintheLake
When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course. Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family. Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger. From visionary director Alma Har’el, “Lady in the Lake” emerges as a feverish noir thriller and an unexpected tale of the price women pay for their dreams.
When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course. Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family. Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger. From visionary director Alma Har’el, “Lady in the Lake” emerges as a feverish noir thriller and an unexpected tale of the price women pay for their dreams.
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00:00There's that age that goes from a child adoring his mother
00:04to disrespecting her as a woman the same way his father does,
00:10and that, in that time period, is really salient.
00:14Hi, I'm Natalie Portman, and this is another take.
00:20Jesus, Mom.
00:22Tessie Durst?
00:23Yeah, I'm Durst's daughter.
00:25Yeah, I know who Tessie Durst is.
00:27This scene is right after Maddie's heard that Tessie Durst,
00:31a little Jewish girl, has gone missing.
00:34She feels compelled to go look for her,
00:38and she's frustrated that her son doesn't have the same desire to help,
00:43and that he's being sarcastic in the face of this other kid's tragedy.
00:49Don't you want to help?
00:50No, no. I want to eat.
00:52If you went missing, wouldn't you want Alan to help me find you?
00:55I should have driven with Dad.
00:57I think for a mother to be disrespected by her son,
01:01where there's that age that goes from a child adoring his mother
01:06to disrespecting her as a woman the same way his father does,
01:12and that, you know, in that time period, is really salient.
01:15So I think there's a real kind of horror aspect
01:18to your child becoming your oppressor.
01:22Did you murder Tessie Durst?
01:23It's the lamb, Seth.
01:26Noah, who plays my son, was really great to work with.
01:30We got to improvise a little bit within the scene,
01:33and it was so fun,
01:34even though, of course, he's being such a little s**t in the scene,
01:38but he's not like that in real life.
01:40If you went missing, wouldn't you want Alan to help me find you?
01:44Oh, so you want to look for Tessie?
01:46So you can count on the Durst to look for me if I go missing?
01:49Why are you always so angry at me?
01:50I think this scene sets up how obsessed Maddie is
01:55with this disappearance of this little girl,
01:58and really is the beginning of her seeking the truth.
02:03The lamb's been in the car the whole day.
02:05I'm sure it's gone to hell.
02:06The lamb is fine.