DVD Review: Toni Collette, Diablo Cody Shine in ‘United States of Tara: The Second Season’

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CHICAGO – It’s difficult to think of a role better suited for the chameleon-like abilities of Toni Collette than Tara Gregson, a devoted wife and mother struggling with dissociative identity disorder. Every episode holds an element of surprise, since viewers are never quite sure which of Tara’s “alters” will emerge next. Will it be the perky ’50s housewife, the flirtatious teenager or the testosterone-oozing Vietnam vet?

Yet in order for the audience to buy any of these personas, they must believe in the character of Tara herself, and that’s where Collette excels the most. Though the actress has played a variety of harried yet loving mothers in everything from “The Sixth Sense” to “About a Boy,” Tara is unlike anyone Collette has tackled before. The character is the bold brainchild of Diablo Cody, a screenwriter who loves telling stories about female protagonists with issues that are worth putting up with. Tara may be a handful, but she deserves (and acquires) every ounce of her long-suffering family’s support.

DVD Rating: 4.0/5.0

There are obvious similarities between Tara and Juno, the heroine of Cody’s Oscar-winning screenplay, which has garnered equal amounts of acclaim and criticism. Juno utilized her self-consciously clever dialogue as a shield to protect her multiple vulnerabilities, and Ellen Page made practically every line ring true. That certainly wasn’t the case in Cody’s disastrous sophomore effort, “Jennifer’s Body,” where the writer’s instantly recognizable style dove straight into the abyss of self parody. “Tara” often brings out the best in Cody, enabling her to work with other writers who assist in making her dialogue sound more varied and naturalistic. Behind Cody’s sharp-tongued snark is an endearing humanity and fascination with the quirks that most of us would rather hide. While topics such as teenage pregnancy and multiple personality disorder are often dramatized as dire tragedies, Cody mines them for their humor and poignancy, while opting to tell stories about survivors rather than self-pitying victims. Though Cody’s world is obviously a heightened version of reality, it certainly seems like a happier place to live.

Toni Collette stars in United States of Tara: The Second Season.
Photo credit: Showtime Entertainment

The second season starts with Tara at home and “dissociative free” when her next door neighbor offs himself, an event that throws her entire dysfunctional family into disarray. With his wife healthier than ever, Max (the terminally laid-back John Corbett) decides to focus his efforts on a new project by buying and flipping the deceased man’s house, which proves to hold a great deal of mystery and intrigue within its shadows. The house begins to unlock repressed memories within Tara’s psyche that bring about two new personalities. Yet Tara is far from the only one that’s searching for her identity.

Narcissistic sis Charmaine (the wonderful Rosemarie DeWitt) feels her new engagement ring has made her life complete, until she discovers that her unborn baby’s father is not the man she suspected. Tara’s headstrong daughter Kate (Brie Larson) literally finds herself a new identity by becoming the muse of an underground artist (Viola Davis), an extroverted character that represents Tara’s “shadow self,” and functions as her spiritual alter. My favorite subplot of this season follows Tara’s son Marshall (Keir Gilchrist), who’s still in the process of discovering his sexual identity. He considers himself gay, but doesn’t fit in with the aggressively flamboyant heads of the GLBT group at his school, inspiring him to give heterosexual love a shot. This intriguingly parallels Tara’s own identity crisis when her male alter Buck conducts an affair with a waitress (Joey Lauren Adams) that Max appeared to be flirting with. One of the most provocative aspects of the show is how Tara’s alters seem to emerge out of her own needs and insecurities, allowing her to do and say things that she wouldn’t be able to accomplish in her own skin. Collette is mesmerizing throughout, allowing subtle nuances in Tara’s face to reflect or foreshadow the personalities hiding within.

United States of Tara: The Second Season was released on DVD on Dec. 28, 2010. Photo credit: Showtime Entertainment

“United States of Tara: The Second Season” is presented in its 16:9 aspect ratio, accompanied by English and Spanish audio tracks. While the previous season’s DVD release offered a variety of special features, including audio commentaries and bonus episodes of other Showtime programs, the new season’s 2-disc set accompanies its twelve episodes with very few extras. There are 34 minutes of cast interviews that primarily consist of teases about the second season that hold very little insight. Only Cody and Davis manage to provide some enlightening morsels, particularly concerning the show’s various metaphors for “shadow psyches.”

Cody says it was always her desire to give Tara a family that was accepting of her disease, even if it was a decided departure from the norm. She also notes that it was her intention to make Tara’s formidable new alter, Shoshanna, a stereotypical women’s therapist, since all of Tara’s alters are essentially archetypes. Davis says that she got a kick out of playing a wholehearted eccentric, since she’s so often been cast as the voice of reason (most memorably in “Doubt”). Corbett admits that there were efforts made to make his character more proactive, since his passivity during the first season made his character appear more deranged than Tara (and perhaps he is). Collette discusses the added challenge of performing in scenes where Tara is interacting with her own co-conscience. Despite its inherently heightened style, Collette believes that the show offers a “true depiction of how people would live with such a condition.” Though I may doubt the show’s accuracy, there’s no doubt how highly I’m anticipating the March premiere of season 3.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com