"The Accused" on more4 now

[Heatherhills]

Not had a fwr tv thread for a while...

Saw this film years ago. Can't remember much.

Have just wikipediaed it and see that RL victim died in car crash at age of 25

I love this film. My husband and I have movie nights where we take it in turns to choose a film to download and watch, and as he hadn't seen it before this was one of my choices. It made him as angry, yet hopeful (because of the one man who did kind of the right thing even though in many respects he was cowardly...just not as hideous and cowardly as the other men), as it always make me. Great performances from the two female leads, and makes me wish Foster and McGillis would do more acting!!

McGillis works in a rehab now apparently.

I think it's problematic. Why does Ken get the flashback? She should have it. She never gets to tell her story. We have to hear it from a man. It also means we see the rape from a voyeuristic point of view. I didn't even need to see it, I already believed her.

I think the rape scene is as titillating as modern rape scenes. It's awful and voyeuristic.

I think as horrible as it was to watch and for the actors to film, the rape scene was definitely needed. I can't imagine many people enjoying watching that scene so don't think it was voyeuristic. They had set up her experience as ambiguous using all the old cliches - she was drunk, she had flirted heavily, she was dressed provocatively, she danced with him etc. It sat the audience in the jurors seat listening to the 'evidence' and made people doubt what the truth was. The only way to really get through what had happened and the horror of it was to shown the scene in the way that they did, IMO.

They could have shown it from her point of view instead of Ken's. Let her tell her story instead of giving it to a male character. The film sets up her word as ambiguous but his gets the weight of the flashback seen from his perspective.