Much of the rest of what they state is blatantly obvious in the script and film, as well as detailed in the other bonus features — brief on camera interviews with Anders (who looks and sounds like a blond Roseanne Barr), Stoltz, Sonic Youth, and Brittany Finamore, who plays the young Sherry. The young Owen is played even more wimpily than Mann’s performance by Owen Butler; but kudos to the young Dan, a chilling Justin De Prume. Perhaps the only bit of useful information Anders imparts in her commentary is that the young kids’ scenes were shot first, which allowed the older actors to pick up physical habits from their younger counterparts, thus adding to their own performances. This is especially true with Stoltz (for whom De Prume is a dead ringer), who perfectly adopts the mannerisms of his younger stand-in. There is also some audition footage, suggested reading on traumatic events by Anders, filmographies, and weblinks.
Yet, for all the potential this film has - and which a better and/or more objective director may have well exploited - it bogs down in the sort of feminist PC clichés that made Monster such a bad film. The men are either unrepentant beasts like Dan and his rapist pals, or wimpy excuses for men, like Owen and Chuck, straight out of the Alice Walker school of misandry. The film even ends with a trite dedication to Anders’ long dead grandmother, described as a rape ‘survivor,’ not ‘victim.’
Yet, despite this seeming sensitivity, instead of showing how the vast majority of rape victims actually do adjust, mature, and cope with their violation, then move on, Anders indulges the Hollywood cliché of the eternal victim who cannot move on. This is, however, in keeping with the film’s immature schizophrenic attitudes toward sex and psychology. As example, it also has too many pointless T&A scenes of sex, yet no male genitalia.
Yes, we know Owen is impotent, so why do we need to see him try banging two different women, and failing? That such gratuitous, and sexist, sex is in this film is startling since the rest of the film is so PC. And, as a whole, the film is far too long at two full hours. It could lose much of its first forty minutes by just getting Owen back to Florida, and cutting the scenes of him shooting blanks. Yet, if that were not enough, there is the bizarre threesome scene with Sherry and two of her groupies, climaxing to furious rock music, an obvious steal from the famous drug scene of Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, to the music of The Doors’ The End. Even worse, though, is the whole device of the flashbacks tells too much of the story, and lessens the impact of Owens’ telegraphed guilt, as well the impact of the film.
Article comments
1 - b
Wow. Scare quotes around rape being a 'trauma'. That's some classy writing.
Just stumbled on this review trying to figure out what this movie is on tv. Thanks for clueing me in to the conspiracy between those damn feminists and PC black actors!
2 - Dan Schneider
They're yawn quotes.
3 - carmen
I just saw the movie and I disagree with you on many things. Being a male you will never comprehend the horror of a rape mind you a gang rape. I lived and as you call it "grew up" and though I got married had a child I can only tell yoiu one never out grows it. Though released from therapy I still have blackouts and stay away from men though I married late and had a son. My trust in life is now taking the course of what I never had done since the rape. I understand Cherry and I am glad it was made it does help many of us who can't go back and face the horror as she did. one may 'move on" but that "experience" always catches up to you and the nightmares come and go throughout ones life. Many of us do not say anything cause many do not want to listen to such a thing that always is out there and I have spoken and many care not. So why speak of it. and one walks away also not wanting to hear .... I thank for this and hope it opens up to many and who knows these husbands or boyfriends friends family or whoever can listen and someday understand...
4 - Stéphane
I'm french and i'm not agree with you.
It's a ggod stuff and i'm think that Don Cheadle especially in his las scene with Gabriel Mann in the kitchen is very big.
Quant au violen lui même nul besoin d'être une femme pour comprendre à quel point cela peut être un acte dégradant et pertubateur et c'est à chacun de réagir ou de non réagir.
5 - Kayla
Wow Dan, insensitivity is thy name. I presume nothing bad has ever happened to you in your life (sarcasm Dan, this sentence was sarcasm). So, do you feel the same about men who suffer from flashbacks and PTSD from war time experiences? Do you feel they must be effeminate whiners who should just get over it and move on? And before you answer that, yes of course they should. If only life were so simple. The sad fact is that not everyone can, and that does not make them weak, it makes them human. Humans that deserve your respect, not your ridicule.
6 - Dan Schneider
It's a bad film, poorly acted, and when trite situations are handled melodramatically, they deserve ridicule.
I do not care if it's a film on Dr. Mengele, if it's nothing new about the man, save that he was a monster, yawn. A good philosophic or political position is not an excuse for bad art. I am a reviewer of the film's art, not its politics. And if the latter damns the former. then it deserves to be skewered.
It's called maturity and objectivity.
7 - Dan Aloi
I love this movie. It actually is not that cliched and treats both the specific traumatizing events and the milieu - which the director knows very well - with sensitivity and depth. The critic seems to be gunning for feminists, or offended somehow by how the material is treated, and comes off as sexist and cynical. The characters behave and interact in a way that shows their pain, denial, and impotence in all senses of the word. Things Behind the Sun is much better than The Accused, and even Kill Bill's thrust of female revenge and survival.
The songs are also very well-done, evoking the original influences on young Sherry. Music is integral to the setting and tone and verisimilitude of most of Anders' work, and here she surpasses everything else she's done, and extraordinarily so, as painful as all the explicit associations with the music are in this film.
8 - Dan Schneider
Triteness and predictability do not equal sensitivity and depth. You may love that, Dan. So what?
9 - Dan Aloi
This film boasts neither... and I'm not a fan of either. I dare guess that as a conservative you have an agenda with victim/survivor narratives or with 'PC' actors. I did enjoy your Pete Hamill interview, what you got out of him, his redress of your questions and his thoughts on what writers should do.
Criticism needn't be objective, but it should be informed and responsible. Critics should serve, not their ideologies, as Hamill notes; but their readers.
10 - Dan Schneider
I'm a conservative? That you even claim such bespeaks your own biases. The film is ill-written, ill-acted, and not of much depth.
Art is not something that one should use as a political hammer.
As for crit- the only way for it to be good and reach across limited POVs is to be objective. Otherwise it's a bumper sticker; like this film.
11 - Kim
Dan, Just came across this. Agree with b back in 2007 - please explain why you place quotation marks around gang rape being a trauma. Do you not believe that rape/ gang rape is a trauma - yes or no?
12 - Dan Schneider
Her being raped or not is not the issue.
Shit happens in life, and making bad art off of one's claimed trauma is not good. I could trot out MANY incidents in my life that would make Anders life look like Disneyworld to my life in Beirut. But I make great art, and don't milk my woes.
As example, Oprah Winfrey got phat off of preying off of dumb and insecure people who would do anything to get on tv, including sell their souls and dignity; and then peddled this to zombie hausfraus to make billions. Then she hit these idiots w her noxious PC New Age religion.
And all this because of a claim that some uncle abused her. So, because Oprah got molested or worse as a child, all the years that she basically did the same to MANY times more people is forgiven?
Similarly, Anders made bad art from a claimed trauma, and puts the trauma over the art. Yawn- as said in response 4 yrs ago.
Art is NOT about pain and suffering, it is about enlightenment. This film did not enlighten; it inflicts pain and suffering on intelligent viewers; therefore it is not mitigated by Anders' claims to being raped.
In short, she's paying forward her pain to all the rest of us- is that fair?