The Happy Housewife

Lea is in her thirties and has everything in its place. Her husband is in property, the money is there, life is glossy. Then Harry is born. She takes it for tiredness at first, then she cannot sleep, then she starts hearing things that are not there. Post-partum psychosis. She is admitted to hospital. From there the film looks back: who this woman was, when she let go of herself, and what was underneath a life that looked flawless. Antoinette Beumer directs the Dutch film; ninety-seven minutes, with Carice van Houten as Lea. It is adapted from Heleen van Royen's novel, written out of what happened to her. The book sold heavily in the Netherlands; its real subject is not motherhood but an illness nobody talks about.