Rape A Love Story Bello Jackson

Thanks But No Thanks / TK

Trade News | March 3, 2009 | Comments (32)

There’s nothing I don’t love about the casting. Sam Jackson? Hell yes. Maria Bello? I forgive you for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer, and plus, you bring the hotness. Abigail Breslin? Easily one of the most talented of the current crop of child stars. And yet, Rape: A Love Story is a film I will most likely be taking a pass on.

The story, as reported by Variety, is based on the Joyce Carol Oates novella published in 2003, and “centers on a mother (Bello) recovering from a brutal gang rape who is stalked by the perpetrators but is protected by a sympathetic cop (Jackson).” It sounds like it’s got great potential, but I freely and unapologetically admit that I’ve got a thing about rape scenes. I don’t condemn them, don’t deny their importance in some films… but I can’t watch ‘em.

It may be moot anyway — it’s directed by Harold Becker, whose resume isn’t exactly filled with winners — Domestic Disturbance and Mercury Rising? Domestic Disturbance is Travolta at his scenery-chewing worst, and does anyone even remember the Bruce Willis trainwreck that was Mercury Rising? Sadly, I do. Becker did also direct the underrated City Hall, but that succeeded more because of its actors than his directing.

In any event — Rape: A Love Story. Thanks, but I’ll pass.

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Mercury Rising had bruce willis and something about a boat and i am going to take a random guess he was a cop.?

Posted by: blacksred at March 3, 2009 5:35 PM

Have to agree with you about rape scenes. I still hate myself for watching Monica Bellucci's rape scene in Irreversible. *shivers*

Posted by: CiCi at March 3, 2009 5:41 PM

Nope, blacksred, you're thinking of Striking Distance - Mercury Rising is the one where Willis has to protect an autistic child who cracks a super-secret government code that has been moronically published in a children's puzzle book.

Posted by: Dill The Devil at March 3, 2009 5:56 PM

Wait..was Striking Distance the one with Bruce Willis' penis? And the horse-faced chick?

Which was the one with Bruce Willis and the girl who was sometimes a boy and sometimes a girl but always a killer?

Posted by: JakesAlterEgo at March 3, 2009 6:16 PM

Even the title is offensive.

Posted by: MissNev at March 3, 2009 6:23 PM

"Which was the one with Bruce Willis and the girl who was sometimes a boy and sometimes a girl but always a killer?"

JakesAlterEgo you're thinking of Color of Night, starring the lovely and pedo-tastic Jane March.

Posted by: TK at March 3, 2009 6:29 PM

MissNev, bring it up with Joyce Carol Oates. It's her title.

Also, for one of her most chilling short stories:

Where are you going, where have you been?

Posted by: twig at March 3, 2009 6:50 PM

Color of Night was a hideous movie.

See now the trouble with this title is that it implies that the rape leads to love between the rapist and victim. Which would be disgusting, although Luke and Laura from General Hospital already played out that storyline years ago.

It's kind of making me feel nauseous, but that could also be the V8 juice I just drank. I'll have to see a preview.

Posted by: Songbird at March 3, 2009 7:05 PM

Thanks a lot, TK -- lure me in with a picture of Aphrodite herself and then drop this?

Despite the cast, it seems to carry far more bad possibilities than good ones (and not a great one to be found). Seriously. No way they break $1 million on opening weekend (if there is an opening weekend) with that title. Somebody tell them they're allowed to change the title -- screw Joyce Carol Oates (ooh, is that irony?). Or just go with a different story altogether. As long as Maria Bello gets naked...

Posted by: Che Grovera at March 3, 2009 7:36 PM

It's actually an amazing story but I've always appreciated Joyce Carol Oates. They'll just fuck it up. Bastards.

Posted by: Melanie at March 3, 2009 7:37 PM

Is Maria Bello the new (or is it old?) Bijou Phillips? Seems a lot of her more recent roles are just...I don't know....brutal?

Posted by: JapJay at March 3, 2009 8:23 PM

I'm with you there, TK, I can't watch them. It's why I found Boys Don't Cry just too disturbing to watch sometimes.

I also have a thing about torture scenes. Can't ever watch them.

Posted by: figgy at March 3, 2009 8:52 PM

I'll definitely pass on this. What is with Maria Bello's choices lately? Didn't she do some weird online dating movie that got panned because of the sex?

It's a shame, because she is seriously talented, and a movie with her and Samuel J. is worth watching. Not too crazy about Abigail Breslin, though. I have yet to see what makes her such a "great talent."

Posted by: Brie at March 3, 2009 10:47 PM

I can only think of one movie I've seen that included rape scenes. It was some dreck with Sally Field and Keifer Sutherland. I tolerated the first scene, just barely and I didn't watch, because it was the lynch pin of the story. When they went for a second graphically brutal rape, I had to leave the theater. I can generally tolerate all manner of horrors (I sat through "Lost in Space") but rape is just a step too far for me.

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at March 4, 2009 9:08 AM

Rape: A Love Story

Take out the colon, and that sounds exactly like what they're doing here.

And Re: Rape Scenes, I would have to agree. I'd rather it be implied, as opposed to seeing the "gory details". BTW Hollywood, not all "mutants" rape people...some just kick ass and eat pizza. Why not make more films about those mutants? This anti mutant propaganda is about as bad as the anti zombie sentiments you see in films every day now! (Zach Snyder, you can hide behind your Watchmen but I'll give you 300 reasons why you should clean up your act after Dawn of the Dead!)

Am I the only person who thought Bryan Singer ~~and Brett Ratner were~~was the only one who did this right?

What were we talking about? Oh, right...rape. No sir, I don't like it. Not on a fox or with some lox, not with Samuel Jackson or Michael Jackson, acceptable in neither Hollywood nor Bollywood, and certainly not with Rosie O'Donnell.

Posted by: Mike R. at March 4, 2009 9:47 AM

Holy shit, twig - chilling, indeed.

Posted by: Kolby at March 4, 2009 9:49 AM

Seriously. No way they break $1 million on opening weekend (if there is an opening weekend) with that title.

Che, they'll be lucky if they get an opening weekend on the Lifetime Movie Channel. (Which is basically the equivalent of having your gala world premiere in Peoria.)

Posted by: Mike R. at March 4, 2009 9:51 AM

I can't watch rape scenes either. There's always too much realism, they make me want to superglue my eyes and legs shut. The humiliation and the mental and physical torture that's involved are just too much.

Posted by: Julie at March 4, 2009 10:02 AM

Exactly, Julie. The reaction for me is a visceral one - it's too uncomfortable, and I end up replaying the scene whenever I close my eyes, or worse, thinking about it in real-life terms, and then... then I kind of just want to die.

Posted by: TK at March 4, 2009 10:06 AM

I end up replaying the scene whenever I close my eyes

Oh god, me too. If I think about it I can remember the sights and sounds of almost every rape scene...the awful chant in The Accused, Dr. Melfi crying in The Sopranos, the two horrific minutes of Irreversible before I turned it off in disgust. Then I spend all night imagining it happening to me or my girlfriends and I go out and buy iron underwear.

Can't do it. Shit, now I need a dose of happy.

Posted by: Julie at March 4, 2009 10:16 AM

PUPPIES!

Just tryin' to help.

Posted by: TK at March 4, 2009 10:18 AM

I saw the CUTEST puppy yesterday at my trolley stop, I ended up petting him with two other girls who were equally smitten. He was 4 months old and tan and white and fluffy, but looked kind of like a bernese mountain dog or something. He had that awesome puppy look of "Holy SNAUSAGES my paws are too big for my body but I'm just so happy about it OOH PEOPLE!!!! Lick lick lick."

I wanted him for my own.

Posted by: Julie at March 4, 2009 10:32 AM

Raping puppies will not help anything.

Posted by: stipe42 at March 4, 2009 10:36 AM

That ain't right, Stipe42. That ain't right at all.

Posted by: TK at March 4, 2009 10:38 AM

Says YOU, Stipe.

Posted by: Julie at March 4, 2009 10:42 AM

This kind of begs for a random list of movies with rape scenes you just can't watch. I'll start with:

1. Prince of Tides. In my opinion, man-on-boy rape is only palatable if your last name is Jackson and you sleep in a hyperbolic chamber. That scene still haunts me.

2. The Accused. The rape scene is too long, too overly sexualized, and too graphic.

3. Casualties of War. "Sarge...what are we doing here?" Chilling.

4. American History X. I'm not sure which looked more painful...the prison rape or the curb munching.

5. Boys Don't Cry. And I don't watch this movie.

Honorable mention goes to When Harry Met Sally, because again, there's no way Billy Crystal could have laid Meg Ryan without at least a Roofie Colada being used as a foreplay device.

Posted by: The Pink Hulk at March 4, 2009 11:50 AM

Ugh. Well, if we're going to list them, include Leaving Las Vegas, Sleepers, Last House on the Left and Irreversible.

There. Now we have a thorough cautionary list.

Posted by: TK at March 4, 2009 11:55 AM

Goddammit, the puppy dies at the end doesn't it?

Posted by: stipe42 at March 4, 2009 12:46 PM

And I always felt like such an ass coming in here and sking "Yeah... but it doesn't have any, uh, of those scenes, does it?" Rape scene in a movie = three days of nightmares and living on the verge of crying for a day or two. I've been trying to numb it down a bit by viewing awesome movies that just happen to have something uncomfortable in them (Pulp Fiction) but I end up leaving the room. Even Rules of Attraction was too much for me.

I can't read about it, either. It sucks.

Add to list
Although it's not violent, for the sake of humiliation- Rules of Attraction.
Also, snuck up on me and I wanted to die- The General's Daughter

Posted by: Sweetie Dahling at March 4, 2009 12:53 PM

Read the book - it's very good (though extremely disturbing) and the "love story" part is decidedly NOT about her loving her rapist(s) (it's a gang rape). I understand being disturbed by rape scenes - I am, too - but I do think they *can* serve to remind viewers of what a horrific, invasive, and violent crime rape is. Shit is happening in Congo, Sudan, etc. every day to elderly women and two-year-old girls (seriously), and I fear it becomes abstract because of its frequency and sheer numbers.

It can also be exploitative and creepy as shit. No doubt.

Posted by: samantha t at March 4, 2009 5:14 PM

I cannot stand Joyce Carol Oates. I've tried. I'm about halfway through The Falls, and I have been for 5 months now. It's not her writing - I realize that she's talented. I just loathe her characters, the plots, her whole aesthetic.

Have you ever had that happen, when you can recognize that something is probably objectively good, but you just hate it?

Anyway, back on topic: puppies are especially adorable when they snuggle with kittens.

Posted by: marya at March 5, 2009 10:28 AM

Marya - yes. I love Oates, but I detest Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I know he's the master of magical realism and I know he's an incredible writer. I just don't like him. Ditto Thomas Pynchon.

May I recommend "We Were the Mulvaneys" as an excellent intro to Oates that's really not as out there as "The Falls"?

Posted by: samantha t at March 5, 2009 10:36 AM

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