Filmmaker Beth de Araujo has turned to cinema to bring her own personal trauma to the screen using a fictionalized situation to mirror the harrowing event in her childhood that has informed the rest of her life, leading to an 11-year quest to turn it into a movie with help from the Sundance Film Institute.
When she was just a child, de Araugo and her father were walking in Golden Gate Park when they stumbled upon a rape in progress. Jumping into action, her father chasing the male offender through the park and called police. Meanwhile, de Araujo stayed behind with the female victim, helped put her clothes back on and tried to comfort her, all the while not completely understanding what she had just witnessed.
This event has stayed with her ever since, and as an adult she has devoted much time to bringing awareness and information to others in order to help society deal with the effects of this kind of incident on an innocent child — something this filmmaker clearly knows firsthand and has found she has to keep talking about to whoever will listen.
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Fictionalizing the situation but keeping it very personal, de Araujo — whose Blumhouse-produced 2022 filmmaking debut Soft & Quiet premiered at SXSW and was released by Momentum Pictures — has turned all this not into a specific memoir but close enough as the effects of rape can go way past the direct victim and attacker but also an innocent bystander whose life is forever changed and whose childhood innocence is irreparably lost. My guess that in making this film, de Araugo has turned this seminal moment in her life into a form of personal therapy as well as public service. What she accomplishes here is a deliberate and earnest portrait of the cost of this one seemingly average walk through the park had, and in the process she has put the focus solely on the question of how young is too young to explain rape to a girl, and what to do when an 8-year-old is the key witness and the only person who could bring justice to a tragic situation.
That is the premise of Josephine, premiering Friday as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition section of the Sundance Film Festival. It focuses on the title character, a second-grader played by newcomer Mason Reeves, who is out early on a Sunday morning for her usual activities including a walk in the park with her father, Damien (Channing Tatum). They briefly get separated as she playfully runs ahead, but in that short time, as she hides behind a tree, she witnesses a violent confrontation when a woman comes screaming out of the public female restroom followed by a man who proceeds to physically knock her out and then rape her. Just as this heinous criminal act ends, Damien turns up and quickly sees what is going on. He calls 911, waits for the cop car and proceeds to join in a chase after the man. Other cops arrive and escort Josephine to the back of the police car as well as the victim.
The man is caught and identified by the victim, and dad and daughter move on with their day, but from this point on something is happening to Josephine. The once-lively young girl now is sullen, asking questions for which there are no easy answers, looking up the definition of “rape” on her cell phone and emerging with distrust of her male classmates, including physically assaulting one of them. Unfortunately, she also is consistently haunted by the trauma of watching the rape and envisions the attacker turning up in her bedroom, house and other places.
Meanwhile, both Damien and his wife, Claire (Gemma Chan), are trying to deal with Josephine’s increasingly erratic behavior, exemplified by an outburst and petulance during a visit to a toy store, among other incidents. It also causes friction between the parents as Damien aggressively believes Josephine must be taught self-defense and Claire resists getting her involved in a trial. Adding complications as time goes on, Claire gets pregnant and is expecting a boy. Prosecutors inform them the victim has moved away, is not cooperating, and the only person who could keep the suspect, Greg (Philip Ettinger), locked away is indeed Josephine. Therapists, specialists in child courtroom testimony and other experts get involved as the dirty details of prosecuting rapists rear their ugly head, and Josephine has to grow up quickly.
Playing out almost as more of a docudrama detailing childhood trauma, Josephine is a tough watch right from the beginning when the rape is graphically presented on screen. Reeves, by necessity, plays Josephine with dour expressions, rarely cracking a smile. She certainly gives you the feeling there is something wrong, but at times it felt like if this was a horror movie this girl might turn into a demonic force at any moment. Maybe that is the point. The trauma that has taken her lifeforce away is so severe it has also taken any personality or child-like joy, even making her dangerous. In other words she becomes a handful. Tatum who has had a string of lighter films in recent years gets a change of pace here and he is very effective as a good-hearted dad trying to help, but not always successfully, Chan is excellent as always and seems well matched with her co-star.
I am not sure there is an audience out there who is going to run to see this downbeat film, but it effectively offers a different pov on the human cost of rape, and the frustration in the legal system, personified by the female defense lawyer looking for any way to cast doubt on the victims in this case, one of them who, by association, happens to be an 8 year old child scarred for life by a quirk of fate. I can only hope that the writer and director of Josephine finds a meaningful reception to her film and some comfort in knowing it may help others just like her.
Producers are David Kaplan, Josh Peters, De Araújo, Marina Stabile, Tatum,
Chan, Mark H. Rapaport, Josh Beirne-Golden, and Crystine Zhang
Title: Josephine
Festival: Sundance (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Sales agents: CAA, WME
Director-screenwriter: Beth de Araujo
Cast: Mason Reeves, Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Philip Ettinger, Syra McCarthy, Eleanore Pienta
Running time: 1 hr 59 mins
