Wow. BPD with narc traits. That would be a hard one for an accomplished, experienced psychiatrist. Pretty sure that is not you.

Yes, it's true that the odious Leda did freak out when her husband said that he needed help with the children. But Gyllenhall didn't tell us much about the mother, did she? She wasted screen time on shithole bullies at a movie and a very, very, very, very long and unlikely academic dinner (100 people an interview? and an oppressed woman, no less).

All that time could have been spent on a backstory - but then we would not have a film that pretended motherhood was somehow malevolent. We would have had something like the novel, with nuance and depth.