In EGG, Marianna Palka/Risa Mickenberg delve into motherhood, womanhood, career and men

Marianna Palka is at it again. After gracing us with the fine, thoughtful and very sexual rom-com, Good Dick, back in 2008, she went on to give us the little-seen but one of 2017's best films, Bitch. Palka wrote and directed those two groundbreakers. With her latest, EGG, she has directed a screenplay by Risa Mickenberg (her first) that seems a very good fit for Ms Palka's interests and skills.

Bitch is streaming now via Netflix. If you haven't seen it, do. It's a difficult movie that goes places I don't think any other film quite has. It turns itself -- and will likely turn you -- inside out, moving from the most intense and difficult anger into, well, you'll see. Ms Palka consistently challenges us, and her gauntlet is worth running.

In her new film, she and Ms Mickenberg explore what "motherhood" means to three very different women (and of course to us, her audience) along with some ideas about feminism, career, male entitlement and, yes, much of the rest of the usual baggage. Yet in the hands of the these two filmmakers (Ms Palka is shown at left), nothing is quite as simple nor as obvious as it may first appear.

There are three women involved in the "motherhood" here, two of which are played by Alysia Reiner, below, left, and Christina Hendricks, right, who were "best friends" in art school a decade or more ago but have not kept up with each other much since.

Reiner, a relatively successful conceptual artist, is having a go at motherhood via a surrogate, while Hendricks, who gave up art but married "well," is very much pregnant and seemingly quite proud of it. Initially these two, along with their husbands, seem like the kind of hypocritical cliche-spouters who you're going to love to hate. But wait. As usual with Palka, things proves not quite so easy.

The movie is divided into sections: first Reiner's, then Reiner's and Hendricks', and finally one devoted to these two plus the beautiful blond surrogate, delightfully played by Anna Camp, above. Everyone's views -- both their pretense and their actual wants and needs -- are aired and given their due, and you will eventually find yourself having to deal with these characters as complex and very problematic people deserving of more than any easy dismissal.

The women, at least. The two men -- nicely played to reveal depths of needy narcissism and male entitlement, by Gbenga Akinnagbe (as Reiner's hubby, shown above, left) and David Alan Basche, as Hendricks', shown above, second from right) -- are mostly poster boys for, yes, narcissism and male entitlement. But both actors make the most of their duplicitous naughtiness, so that they remain fun to smirk at and enjoy.

The movie rightly belongs to Reiner, Hendricks and Camp, and all three come through quite beautifully, though in the last analysis, the film belong to Ms Reiner. A striking presence (as she was as well in Orange Is the New Black and Equity), here, she is given the chance to open up, reveal more layers of feeling, and actually touch us.

Hendricks, in the slightly smaller role, does the same and with lovely subtlety and ease, while Ms Camp, playing a lady with less on the ball, proves able to hold her own shakier ground quite well. There's a nice sense of theatricality here -- the movie is mostly shot on a single set, so the dialog counts for more than usual -- and there is also a kind of genuine modesty at work.

Egg knows what it's about and what it needs to accomplish, and it manages all this with -- along with some anger -- surprising empathy and grace. From Gravitas Ventures and running just 84 minutes, the film opens theatrically this Friday, January 18, in Los Angeles at the AMC Universal Cinema at Citywalk Hollywood, and in New York City at the Roxy Cinema Tribeca. Simultaneously, Egg will be available nationwide via VOD.

With BITCH, writer/director Marianna Palka gives Jason Ritter his most important role yet...

...and he runs with it like crazy. Mr. Ritter's is the best performance from an actor I've seen this year, and if the storied Academy members ever deigned to really look at small indie movies in the way they should, fit praise would be forthcoming around "Oscar" time. Don't get too hopeful; remember how they treated last year's best actress, Rebecca Hall in Christine. Meanwhile, take a chance on the unusual new movie entitled BITCH, written and directed by Marianna Palka, who also co-stars. Back in 2008 Ms Palka gave us the very fine Good Dick, also starring Mr. Ritter, and her new film is even better: stronger, original and hugely surprising.

Palka, above, plays a put-upon housewife named Jill Hart who is literally suicidal when we first meet her. At first we imagine this is due to her clueless and unfaithful hubby, Bill Hart (played by Ritter, below) and her four (count' em!) kids who we assume are the sort of impossible, narcissistic brats driving their mom 'round the bend. But things are not quite so simple. Note the dog outside their house who barks constantly, and with whom Jill may be identifying.

And, no, this is not a 21-Century update on that popular TV show, Hart to Hart. What happens here may be about as strange as American indie movies get, and yet on even a realistic level, Bitch never quite leaves the realm of the possible -- if the hugely unconventional and bizarrely, brazenly ugly. TrustMovies is not going to go into plot detail because viewers deserve to experience what happens here -- and then decide why it happens -- on their own. I'll just say that Ms Palka has been awfully brave and ballsy in her choices.

First off, she cedes the film's most important role to Ritter, who makes an absolute meal of it. From his early and very funny scenes as the self-involved, utterly clueless husband from hell to the movie's mid-section as his character falls screechingly apart (above) to the finale in which Bill begins to change, this is first-class movie-making in both conception and execution, as well as superior performing. Palka herself does a remarkable job as the titular bitch. This kind of performance is something you will not have previously seen, and yet it is also clearly a supporting role.

Also giving fine support are Jamie King, above, left, as Jill's sister, and Brighton Sharbino, Rio Mangini, Kingston Foster and Jayson Maybaum as her four children -- all of whom turn out to be more caring and helpful that we would have initially imagined. So what's the big problem? Sure, feminism rises to the surface here, but not at all in the manner we most often see it. The key lies in the relationship between husband and wife, and how this unfurls is near-miraculous in terms of original and surprising movie-making.

There is a speech given somewhat past the halfway mark that is so succinct and devastating in terms explaining the care and effort a woman brings to a marriage that hearing it should make many of us ex- and/or present husbands cringe in recognition and guilt.

Bitch is finally a love story, and considering what has come before, what occurs subsequently seems doubly moving, rich and profound. Yours truly was in unexpected tears toward the end. As much as anything he has seen in a long while, Palka's film raises and then gives a very possible answer to Freud's famous question, What does a woman want?

From Dark Sky Films and running 93 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, November 10, in New York City (at the Village East Cinema), in Chicago on Friday, November 17 (at the Facets Cinémathèque) and on November 24 in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Music Hall 3), as well as in a number of other cities across the country this week and those following. Click here then scroll down to see (some of the) currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters (perhaps Dark Sky will want to update this list soon so that the Los Angeles opening is added).