‘The Liberation’ trailer: Carrie Coon faces a family divide

Carrie Coon plays a mother searching for a new beginning in The Liberation, but the first trailer suggests that the freedom offered to her character comes at a steep cost to her family. Lily James plays the magnetic leader of an all-women’s commune, while Bella Ramsey and Odessa Young play the daughters who go looking for their mother.

The drama is personal for director Guy Nattiv, who has said that the film was inspired by the experiences of his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. It is also a work of fiction: Nattiv told Screen International that a central rescue attempt in the movie imagines something that did not happen in his family’s real history.

Bleecker Street, the film’s U.S. distributor, lists a January 8, 2027 opening in select theaters, followed by a nationwide release January 15. The film already traveled the festival circuit, including Telluride, Toronto and London, before the trailer’s release.

A mother’s search for a different life

Coon plays Rita Cooper, a wife and mother living with the long shadow of trauma. The British Film Institute’s London Film Festival introduction describes Rita as a bank teller and Holocaust survivor whose outwardly ordinary life conceals a painful history.

Ricki King, played by James, offers Rita the possibility of healing and a new start. Rita leaves her husband and daughters for the secluded group Ricki leads. The premise sets up a conflict between Rita’s hopes for herself and the alarm her departure causes the people closest to her.

The trailer introduces a world that promises belonging while keeping the larger question unresolved: what happens when the person trying to leave an old life behind does not see the new one in the same way her family does? That tension is part of the film’s fictional premise, not evidence that every detail follows the real events that inspired it.

Ramsey plays Ella and Young plays Jo, Rita’s daughters. In the film’s synopsis, the sisters arrive at the commune intending to bring their mother back, only to find themselves drawn into its world. The family’s attempt to reconnect becomes the pressure point of the story, with the characters facing different ideas about safety, choice and escape.

Tracy Letts plays Rita’s husband, Reuben. Letts and Coon are married in real life, a connection that gives the screen pairing an additional point of interest for audiences who know their work. Their off-screen relationship is separate from the fictional couple’s story.

The family history behind the film

At a Deadline event, Nattiv recalled attending group meetings with his grandmother when he was eight. He later returned with a camera, seeking to understand her experience. Carrie Coon told the Chicago Sun-Times that she prepared for the part by watching testimony from Holocaust survivors, including recordings made by Nattiv’s grandmother.

The film does not present itself as a documentary record of every event. The director said his mother and aunt wanted to rescue their mother but did not make the visit portrayed in the drama. The sisters’ journey is the filmmakers’ “what if” scenario, built around an emotional situation rather than a literal reconstruction.

That distinction matters because the film’s strongest premise is also its most dramatic departure. Viewers can understand why the story was important to Nattiv without treating the characters’ actions or the outcome as a complete account of his grandmother’s life. His description of her choices is his perspective as a family member and filmmaker, not a medical explanation for other people’s experiences.

The performers at the center

Coon’s previous screen work includes The Leftovers, His Three Daughters and the third season of The White Lotus. Here, the story asks her to carry both Rita’s private history and a family conflict that unfolds around the decisions she makes. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Coon described the preparation behind the role and discussed working alongside Letts.

The Chicago International Film Festival presented Coon with an Artistic Achievement Award during the film’s festival run. The Sun-Times noted that she is also a member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble and plays Bertha Russell in The Gilded Age. Those credits show the range of work she brings to a film that places a middle-aged woman’s perspective at the center of its story.

James plays the person who opens the door to Rita’s new life. Ricki is not simply a name in a synopsis: her relationship with Rita is the engine that draws the mother away from her established home and gives the daughters a reason to enter the group. The tension between a promise of belonging and the concerns of Rita’s family gives James and Coon’s scenes their central role in the trailer.

Ramsey and Young bring the daughters’ perspectives into the story. The British Film Institute describes two young women trying to extract their mother while confronting the influence of the leader themselves. The film’s setup does not require viewers to know the real family history to understand the immediate question: can the sisters persuade Rita to leave a place she believes has helped her?

Letts completes the immediate family as Reuben. The cast also includes Jaime Ray Newman and Siobhan Williams, according to the film’s credits and reporting. Nattiv directs from a script he wrote with Noa Berman-Herzberg; the British Film Institute lists both writers in its festival credits. They previously collaborated on Mabul, also known as The Flood, according to Berman-Herzberg’s biography at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

From research to the festival circuit

Actor Maia Michaels told Film Obsessive that the cast filmed in Vancouver and then traveled to Vancouver Island during the 2025 shoot. Her interview offers another perspective on the making of the ensemble drama and on how the performers worked together.

The finished film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. Toronto followed, and the British Film Institute presented the film at its London Film Festival. Those screenings gave festival audiences an early look before the U.S. theatrical rollout announced by Bleecker Street.

Early reviews have been varied in emphasis. Deadline’s Telluride review praised the film’s female-led perspective and Coon’s work, while The Guardian’s Toronto review commended her performance but found parts of the plot more conventional. Those are critics’ assessments; neither is a substitute for an audience’s own view of the film.

The trailer is a first look at the wider release rather than the film’s first public showing. Festival coverage supplies context about the production and its real-life inspiration, while the distributor’s synopsis identifies the central fictional relationships. Both are useful, but they answer different questions.

What viewers should watch for

The premise places Rita’s decision at the center rather than treating her only as the subject of someone else’s rescue. Her daughters’ arrival changes the story from a private search for belonging into a confrontation among family members who may disagree over what leaving would mean.

Nattiv’s account also points to a difference between inspiration and adaptation. He has described the script as a way to examine his grandmother’s life while imagining events his family never carried out. That makes The Liberation a personal drama shaped by real experience, not a scene-by-scene account of that experience.

For moviegoers, the next milestone is the theatrical release. Bleecker Street lists select U.S. theaters on January 8, 2027 and a nationwide expansion on January 15. Local theater listings will determine where and when individual screenings are available.

Among upcoming releases, our Dune: Part Three trailer coverage examines another story of divided family loyalties. Follow our movie coverage for further releases.

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*PHOTO: Carrie Coon at The Liberation’s TIFF screening, September 16, 2026. K6ka / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.*

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