How young is too young to teach a girl about the dangerous, toxic men that are out there in the world? In Beth de Araújo’s sophomore feature, Josephine, the title character is an 8-year-old girl who has this lesson thrust upon her unexpectedly during a normal jog through the park with her father. Splitting apart from him temporarily, Josephine witnesses a rape and, not knowing what she’s seeing, watches it from afar until her father arrives, chases the man off, and calls the police. When de Araujo introduced the film as being a reflection of a real-life experience that she has been living with ever since, and spending the last 11 years trying to turn into a movie, it’s impossible to be prepared for the knee-buckling pain she is bringing to the screen.
Josephine is about how a sexual assault can create ripple effects that go way beyond the immediate victim. Josephine, referred to mostly as Jo, is played by newcomer Mason Reeves, a real find who is still so young she couldn’t even be there for some of today’s Sundance world premiere due to the film’s adult subject matter. Channing Tatum plays her father, Damien, an overprotective jock with a “rub some dirt on it” mentality when it comes to pain. That makes him uniquely unsuited to deal with the trauma that he’s about to witness first hand. Gemma Chan is Jo’s mom, Claire, a ballet dancer and the sensitive one in the parental duo.
Jo finds herself sitting in the police car with the victim while her father and the cops chase down the rapist. They catch him, the man is identified and arrested, but that is far from the end of it. Normally upbeat and spry, Jo is now morose, quick-tempered, and violent. Her transformation into a volatile child is like something out of a horror movie, but it’s also understandable. She has questions about what she saw. She begins googling the word “rape”, and talking about sex with kids at school. Even more worrisome, she keeps seeing the rapist everywhere; sometimes he’s sitting at the dinner table, sometimes he’s playing with her pet mouse, sometimes he’s right there at her bedside.
While these are all illusions, the impact on Jo is very real. And her parents, who are complete opposites when it comes to dealing with her, aren’t handling it very well. This has a chance of destroying the family altogether if something isn’t figured out. While it’s frustrating to see Jo’s parents bicker and pretty much do everything wrong in helping their child, at the same time, we can’t help but understand it. For someone like Damian, he thinks toughening her up is the answer, to teach her that the world is dangerous and unfair. Claire would rather shield her from the ugliness altogether, believing her daughter to be too young to have the happiness of youth ripped away. The thing is, it’s already happening.
Josephine is a tough movie to watch right from the beginning, and necessarily so. This is an impossible subject, with no easy answers to give. Even when the subject of prosecuting the assailant comes up, and Jo is the only key witness (it’s a bit off that Damian isn’t put on the stand considering his involvement), we see how cruel the legal system can be in demonizing rape survivors and terrifying child witnesses.
There’s a chance that Josephine will attract an audience due to strong word of mouth, and the star power of its leads, Tatum and Chan, who are both great as parents living a nightmare. But this is not going to be an easy movie to market, and not a lot of people are going to want to invest in such a grim topic. Certainly, this isn’t the kind of movie you set out to watch on repeat. It’s bone-chillingly real, filmed to maximize the dark reality of true evil that exists out there in the world. Only on a couple of occasions did it feel that Araújo goes too far, one violent assault too many. Araújo has made it part of her life’s work to inform others of the impact on kids who witness such traumatic events. It’s a worthy message to spread, and Josephine spreads it compassionately. But make no mistake, this movie will terrify you just as much as it will break your heart.
