Guardian - 21 January 2018, 15:00 (+ 2289 days 9 hours and 28 minutes) Movies & TV
Laura Dern stars as a woman coming to terms with her own molestation in Jennifer Cox’ landmark filmI’ve attended the Sundance Film Festival for about a decade and, until now, there’s always been a constant. After a big premiere, the men’s room adjacent to the enormous Eccles Theater is brimming with chatter. As the credits rolled on Jennifer Fox’s The Tale there was stony silence. I’ve never seen anything like it - the hushed lavatory or, quite frankly, this film.The Tale rattled me in ways I didn’t know I still could be rattled. This deliberately paced, remarkable exploration about sexual abuse, consent and way we second-guess ourselves is the mother of all #MeToo movies. Perhaps if I knew going in that I would see (simulated) child molestation and hear the phrases predators use to lure children into thinking that their bond is “too pure for regular society to understand”, I would not have had such a visceral reaction. Would Jennifer Fox and company take it as a compliment if I told them that their movie almost made me throw up? Because it did, but only because this remarkable achievement is so damn effective. Continue reading...