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‘United States of Tara’ might be Toni Colette’s best role ever. Here’s why

Toni Collette’s career is stacked with incredible performances, but her role as a woman with dissociative identify disorder shows off all her talents at once.

Toni Collette (and Tony Collette) in 'United States of Tara'. Credit: Showtime

Ask a room for their favourite Toni Collette performance, and you might just get a different answer per person.

Okay, maybe more than a few people will pick her 1994 breakthrough role in Muriel’s Wedding, playing a loveable, ABBA-obsessed dag – a performance so endearing it turned the then unknown 22-year-old Australian actor into an international star.

But across her three-decade career and near-one hundred performances since, the Australian actor has led action blockbusters, daring indie dramas, sweeping rom-coms and menacing horrors.

Still, there’s one role that pulls upon all of Collette’s many talents — United States of Tara, a wonderful, wacky and gripping comedy-drama about a woman with dissociative identity disorder (DID, previously known as multiple personality disorder).

Playing the titular Tara, Collette also transforms completely for each of the character’s seven alters, distinct personalities that range from 1950s housewife Alice to wild teenager T and proud redneck and ladies man Buck.

You can see shades of some of Collette’s best characters across her alters – after-all, her finest are women on the verge of a breakdown/breakthrough. In Tara, you’ll see glimpses of Little Miss Sunshine’s mother-at-the-brink; in Alice, echoes of The Hour’ surreal, eerie 1950s housewives; in T, Muriel Heslop’s desperate need to be loved.

And elsewhere (no major spoilers here!), you’ll find traces of Collette’s more recent villainous turns, from her terrifying performance in horror Hereditary or recent take on a cultish new-age school leader in thriller series Wayward. It’s no wonder Collette won an Emmy for United States of Tara: it’s essentially a showcase for the actor, helping to pivot her career into the darker, duplicitous roles that have defined the last decade.

Originally airing from 2009 to 2011, United States of Tara is ambitious TV even by today’s standards, a unique blend of quirky comedy, carefully studied character drama and a mystery thriller across its three seasons.

It also provides an (imperfect) insight into an incredibly complex and misunderstood disorder, one believed to predominantly stem from complex early childhood trauma, as is the case with Tara. For this show to work, it needed two things – an incredibly empathetic, grounded performance from its lead actor, and a deft hand to balance intense themes with laughs.

Toni Collette as Tara. Credit: Showtime

Stemming from an idea by Steven Spielberg, United States of Tara was created by Diablo Cody, who had just won a screenwriting Oscar for Juno and was drawn in by the show’s challenge.

“We want things to be funny. At the same time we’re dealing with some pretty intense issues,” Cody told the LA Times in 2010. “At first it was a challenge to write funny stuff and still keep it emotional.”

We meet Tara Gregson at a crossroads: A regular-seeming wife and mother of two living in Kansas City who is stable but numb, with medication suppressing both her DID symptoms and her emotions.

Struggling to access suppressed memories, she stops taking her medication in the hopes of processing an unknown trauma – and in the hopes of reconnecting to her family, including loving husband Max (John Corbett, aka Aidan from Sex and the City) and two teenagers, Marshall (Kier Gilchrist) and Kate (Brie Larson, pre-fame). It’s a mixed bag; by the pilot’s end, Buck beats up Kate’s abusive boyfriend after a dance recital. But as far as Tara’s alters’ antics go though, that’s pretty tame.

John Corbett as Max, Toni Collette as Tara, Keir Gilchrist as Marshall, and Brie Larson as Kate in 'United States of Tara' season 2. Credit: Jordin Althaus / Showtime

But there is a certain logic to the chaos that Tara’s alters create, and as she dives deeper into her past, the Gregsons only grow closer. While United States of Tara can get pretty outlandish, the show pulled from true experiences, consulting psychiatrists as well as people with DID.

“We don’t imagine things that happens to a person with DID,” Cody said in 2010. “We always have an anecdote or data to back it up.”

No, United States of Tara isn’t completely accurate. Tara’s alters all have unique wardrobes and looks that would require hours in a makeup chair, for starters, and there are plenty of more pointed criticisms of the show from therapists and people with DID, particularly around the show’s depiction of violent alters.

But it’s also been praised for its treatment of DID as a serious, real disorder – a tension that Tara comes up against repeatedly, as her own sister Charmaine (Rosemarie DeWitt) believes she fakes it for attention.

While United States of Tara is undoubtedly Collette’s show, she’s matched by an incredible cast, with other family members all given their own lives and complex issues beyond Tara’s DID. Charmaine’s on-and-off again with Max’s friend Neil (Patton Oswalt) could be its own show.

Meanwhile, Marshall struggles to accept that he’s gay, leading him to land a pushy girlfriend (Zosia Mamet, pre-Girls) and Kate floats through life post school, unsure of her direction and often getting into sticky situations – including a strange muse relationship with a local artist played by EGOT-winner Viola Davis.

Toni Collette as one of the many faces of Tara. Credit: Jordin Althaus / Showtime

Clearly, there’s a lot going on. Yes, the show’s a little messy, overstuffed with ideas and balancing some incredibly deep, dark traumas with laughs. Arguably, United States of Tara shouldn’t work, but much like Tara, it more than makes do, embracing its oddities with great charm and a gripping emotional weight.

Embracing oddity might be the defining through-line of Collette’s career, whether that be the meek Iris learning to stand strong in indie-drama Clockwatchers, the heartwarming journey of Muriel’s Wedding, or the charming clay world of Mary and Max.

Collette said it best back in 2010, talking to Australian blog The Film Pie about whether there’s a theme to the roles she picks. “It’s the fact that there’s no such thing as normal,” she said. “Every [role] that I do is about appreciating individuality and seeing the special qualities in everyone. We’re not just living in this homogenised, whitewash, boring world where everyone wears the same uniform.”

There’s no better example of that than United States of Tara.

All seasons of United States of Tara are streaming at SBS On Demand.