Open Window (2006)
A terrible attempt at high drama, and a noble attempt to get to something difficult.
A young couple have just gotten engaged. The woman is then raped. This is shown briefly but the point is how they cope and adjust. Or not.
And I imagine it's harder than you'd think. There are all kinds of interpersonal issues on both sides. The woman has the direct trauma, the nightmares, the wondering about intimacy. The man faces this from outside, has growing and gnawing empathy, and also struggles with intimacy. Things might just then fall apart--you'll have to see.
In fact the two leads are rather good, Robin Tunney as a photographer's assistant and Joel Edgerton as the sincere fiancé. The girl's mom shows up in several scenes and I found her terrible--and was surprised it was Cybill Shepherd. It was partly her lines that were weak, or just a casting problem. The guy's dad shows up, too, and is decent but kind of expendable in terms of the main plot.
Besides a bunch of directing and writing decisions that water the movie down, it has one quality that ruins it--the rape itself. I was relieved that it wasn't really shown--only very briefly at first, and that was awful enough. I even commented to my girlfriend how happy I was not to have to sit through the shock of that kind of scene. Then the movie keeps reliving it in more and more detail for the rest of the movie. So you never escape it. And it gets increasingly gruesome. And psychologically weird, which I know is possible but the mental twists aren't supported by the writing or the rest of the characterization.
It's too bad, because the movie could have really focused on the relationship and their struggle to get past the horrible event. The move to sensationalizing it makes the whole move cheap and false.
A terrible attempt at high drama, and a noble attempt to get to something difficult.
A young couple have just gotten engaged. The woman is then raped. This is shown briefly but the point is how they cope and adjust. Or not.
And I imagine it's harder than you'd think. There are all kinds of interpersonal issues on both sides. The woman has the direct trauma, the nightmares, the wondering about intimacy. The man faces this from outside, has growing and gnawing empathy, and also struggles with intimacy. Things might just then fall apart--you'll have to see.
In fact the two leads are rather good, Robin Tunney as a photographer's assistant and Joel Edgerton as the sincere fiancé. The girl's mom shows up in several scenes and I found her terrible--and was surprised it was Cybill Shepherd. It was partly her lines that were weak, or just a casting problem. The guy's dad shows up, too, and is decent but kind of expendable in terms of the main plot.
Besides a bunch of directing and writing decisions that water the movie down, it has one quality that ruins it--the rape itself. I was relieved that it wasn't really shown--only very briefly at first, and that was awful enough. I even commented to my girlfriend how happy I was not to have to sit through the shock of that kind of scene. Then the movie keeps reliving it in more and more detail for the rest of the movie. So you never escape it. And it gets increasingly gruesome. And psychologically weird, which I know is possible but the mental twists aren't supported by the writing or the rest of the characterization.
It's too bad, because the movie could have really focused on the relationship and their struggle to get past the horrible event. The move to sensationalizing it makes the whole move cheap and false.