Jena Malone – Angelica #Berlinale

Jena Malone – Actress – Angelica

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets actress Jena Malone, protagonist of the film ANGELICA by Mitchell Lichtenstein where she plays both the role of Constance and that of her daughter Angelica.

Jena Malone talks about the physical challenges she had to face in playing this role, considering that she went through depression and weight loss as she embraced totally her character, a young, intense and innocent woman in Victorian England.

As the film deals with a tricky topic at the time, female sexuality, when talking about the way women experience and talk about sex and their sexuality now, Jena Malone says that, even though we’ve gone far from that moment of history and we can talk and get every information we want, there’s still a mistery in how women feel and experience things. This is why we should embrace the mistery of being a woman.

Plot: In Victorian England, innocent shopgirl Constance falls in love with Dr. Joseph Barton, a medical researcher. They soon marry, but their intense passion is cut short. After the life-threatening birth of daughter Angelica, puritanical doctors order abstinence, condemning Constance for lascivious appetites. Sexual repression opens a rift between the young couple. Frustration leads to obsession, and Constance becomes more and more protective of Angelica. Joseph’s secrets fuel the growing conflicts. Then, late at night, the household begins to be disrupted by what appears to be a paranormal predator. The eerie nocturnal visits multiply, evermore menacing and vividly evoking Constance’s deepest fears. With the help of staunch maid Nora, Constance reaches out to a spiritualist to cleanse the home of its terrors. But the arrival of charismatic Anne Montague brings even more complexities to the deteriorating Barton household. Constance places her deepest trust in Anne, and together they fight against a force that may be more sinisterly human than supernatural.