Television series

United States of Tara

Name: United States of Tara
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: 2009
Cast: Toni Collette, John Corbett, Keir Gilchrist, Brie Larson, Rosemarie DeWitt

United States of Tara is Diablo Cody's half-hour family dramedy about a suburban mother with dissociative identity disorder, and the alters — teenage rebel, biker dad, prim homemaker — who take the wheel when things get too hard. Toni Collette shape-shifts scene to scene, funny and frightening at once. It's for people who want their comfort-viewing to have real teeth in it.

TVMaze rating

7.5

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Six Feet Under2001

The gold standard for a family dramedy that takes death, grief and dysfunction seriously while still being wickedly funny. If Tara's tonal balancing act appealed, this invented the balance.

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Enlightened2011

Laura Dern is magnificent as a woman trying to become a better version of herself in real time, cringe-comedy and genuine tenderness fused together the way Tara's alters fuse into one household.

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Orange Is the New Black2013

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Suburban mothers, immaculate surfaces, and the violence and secrecy underneath them — a much glossier, starrier take on the gap between how a family looks and what's actually happening inside it.

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It's the non-fiction spine of Tara's premise: real case histories of alters forming to survive trauma, minus any of the show's warmth or jokes.

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Same actress playing the same basic nightmare — a mother whose selfhood fractures and endangers the family around her — reimagined in the most extreme register possible.

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