The Unraveling of Julia

In Philadelphia, Julia has a premonition that something tragic is going to occur. She is walking home after a late dinner with her husband Mike and tells him that she is afraid. Then, a man in a blue hoodie mugs them. Mike moves in between Julia and the mugger. The mugger stabs Mike with a large hunting knife and runs off. Mike dies in Julia’s arms.

Mike is cremated and rests in an urn on a bookshelf in Julia’s home. They were planning on trying to have children in the coming year, Mike was saving up for a new car, and he had plans for his lawyers’ league championship. Julia struggles to sleep, haunted by nightmares of the mugging. She tries joining a crime victim support group, but it makes her nightmares worse. Her best friend, Courtney, convinces Julia to see a therapist, Susanna, over video chat. Julia is scared to leave the house most of the time.

Melanie and Martin Pritzker adopted Julia when she was very young, and doesn’t know anything about her biological family. On Julia’s 10th birthday, Melanie died of an aneurysm. This created a rift between Julia and Martin, who died of a heart attack when Julia was a junior in college.