Have you ever tried to block out a pervasive voice and focus? Maybe you work in an open office and your teammates have ways of carrying on when you need to think. Or maybe you’ve been in a cafe trying to read or write and the people at the table next to you are just talking a little too loud. It can be damned-near impossible to block out the conversation sometimes, can’t it?

Now imagine that the voice is your own…and everything it’s saying is corrosive and convincing.

In director Justine Bateman’s new film, Violet is Olivia Munn. She is a film executive who already has a successful career, even if her boss and teammates don’t want to give her due credit. This leads to some overwhelming imposter syndrome and anxiety that she regularly hears as a voice in her head (voiced by Justin Theroux).

These feelings spill over on to her relationship with her family, her closest friends, her ex-boyfriend, and even a writer she cares for currently. None of these relationships are allowed to exist on their own terms – or even on the bedrock of Violet’s most positive thoughts (which often dot the screen in cursive script).

Instead, every decision, and every interaction, will be raked by the presence of Violet’s own anxieties, and a harsh pattern repeats.

The voice in Violet’s head could have easily become a gimmick. As abrasive and overwhelming as her voice of anxiety can sometimes be, had Bateman not known precisely when to reign the voice in and when to let it loose, the device could easily have become a cliche schtick.

The end result is far from schtick; rather, it becomes a lens through which we begin to see Violet’s entire life. Were we left on the outside looking in, we might wonder what it is that is holding back this smart, successful, and stunning young woman from having absolutely anything she wants. By letting us in, though – Bateman makes us privy to the calamity of Violet’s anxiousness.

The voice that usually only speaks to an audience of one suddenly has a very loud microphone- and we cannot help but feel the deepest pathos for the subject of its scorn. Despite continually seeing Violet’s pleas and prayers writ-large in cursive, we cannot help but feel overwhelmed by the voice in her head. We know what we would say if we were in her shoes – maybe even what she should say from moment-to-moment.

But that damned voice of self doubt is just…so persuasive.

VIOLET isn’t a story about winning and losing. It has no interest in whether or not Munn ends the film “feeling better”. It makes it clear that Violet is who she is and on some level it’s who she always will be.