About
STORY
Maggie Black revolves around a successful, young writer’s first pregnancy, the excitement of which is overshadowed by her complicated relationship with reality. Haunted by her past but determined to do what she thinks is best for the baby Maggie secretly stops taking her medications. As she and her husband try to prepare their new home for their baby, Maggie descends into a nightmare of her own making.
WRITER’S PERSPECTIVE
Maggie Black is a character-driven, psychological drama. Dark and suspenseful in tone the piece is rooted in the truthful representation of the emotional and physical impact the simultaneous pressures of pregnancy, bipolarity, and isolation have on the title character. The film is not about a diagnosis or an illness, rather a real person who makes a series of well-intentioned, but ultimately detrimental choices that force her down a disastrous path. The combination of being pregnant and having bipolar disorder can lead to the “most severe episodes of illness in psychiatric practice,”1 and this film explores the extremes of this uniquely female issue.