Themes: Social Injustice, Rape & Sexual Abuse, Redemption
Main Cast: Kelly McGillis, Jodie Foster, Bernie Coulson, Leo Rossi, Ann Hearn
Release Year: 1988
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Based on a real-life 1983 incident, The Accused tells the story of Sarah Tobias (Jodie Foster), a working-class party girl who likes to live it up with her friends and flirt hard with the guys. After a fight with her boyfriend, she heads to a local bar to cool down -- and after a few drinks, plus some dancing and flirting, she finds herself thrown on top of a pinball machine and gang-raped by a bunch of locals, while others watch and cheer the proceedings. District attorney Kathryn Murphy (Kelly McGillis) takes Sarah's case but quickly negotiates a plea bargain in which the attackers' charges are reduced to reckless endangerment. Her reason: defense attorneys could use Sarah's not-so-pretty past to paint her as "asking for it," getting their clients off completely. But a stunned Sarah accuses Murphy of selling her out, and when the lawyer sees how the incident continues to destroy Sarah's life, she decides she must seek true justice. This time, she goes after the crowd of onlookers for "criminal solicitation" -- those who were egging the rapists on. Foster won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
Review
Jonathan Kaplan's fact-based drama, one of the most thoughtful examinations of the crime of rape on film, features an Academy award-winning performance by Jodie Foster. An account of the gang rape of a free-living waitress (Foster) by some of the male patrons of a dive bar, the film exposes the manner in which the pre-feminist blame-the-victim attitude toward rape victims, still predominant in many areas, is also hard-wired into the legal system. A more subtle secondary theme concerns the role of social class, and the difficulty experienced by the working-class victim in being heard, especially by her well-bred attorney (Kelly McGillis). When, driven by her client's rage, the lawyer finally brings the rape's bystanders to trial, the film means to implicate a society which has always maintained an unwritten code which would shrug off such behavior. Tom Topor's low-key script largely avoids melodrama, following the waitress' case through the various stages of the victim services and legal grievance system, where the perfunctory treatment she's accorded explains her growing anger, and desire for retribution. While McGillis seems a bit slow and stolid to be playing a litigator, Foster is brilliant as this troubled, nearly inarticulate woman who slowly gains an awareness that nothing she did could possibly have justified the ordeal she was forced to endure. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Carmen Argenziano - Paul Rudolph; Steve Antin - Bob Joiner; Tom O'Brien - Larry; Peter van Norden - Attorney Ted Paulson; Woody Brown - Danny Ruskin; Allan Lysell - Al Massi; Gary Chalk - Courthouse Reporter; Babs Chula - Woman Lawyer; Linda Darlow - Carol Hunnicutt (Rape Center Woman); Stephen Dimopoulos - Complaining Customer; Frances Flanagan - Mrs. Albrect; Michelle Goodger - Courthouse Reporter; Deryl Hayes - Court Officer; Thomas Heaton - Bartender Jesse; Christianne Hirt - Angela; Anthony Holland - Plea Bargain Lawyer; Kim Kondrashoff - Kurt; Gloria Lee - Courthouse Reporter; Tom McBeath - Defendant Stu Holloway; Kevin McNulty - Plea Bargain Lawyer; Terry David Mulligan - Det. Duncan; Barney O'Sullivan - Trial Judge; Scott Paulin - Attorney Wainwright; Garwin Sanford - Courthouse Reporter; Dana Still - Jury Foreman; Jerry Wasserman - Plea Bargain Lawyer; Rose Weaver - Nurse; Denalda Williams - Sarah's Mother on Phone; Mike Winlaw - TV Commentator; Stephen E. Miller - Polito; Andrew Kavadas - Defendant Matt Haines; Freda Perry - Receptionist; Veena Sood - Woman Orderly; Rebecca Toolan - 911 Operator; Pamela Martin - TV Commentator; Wally Marsh - Bail Hearing Judge; Dave Sheridan - Sally's Son
Credit
Sheila Haley - Art Director, Jack Roe - Associate Producer, Sally Dennison - Casting, Julie Selzer - Casting, Michelle Allen - Casting, Stanley Jaffe - Co-producer, Sherry Lansing - Co-producer, Trish Keating - Costume Designer, David W. Rose - First Assistant Director, Jonathan Kaplan - Director, O. Nicholas Brown - Editor, Jerry Greenberg - Editor, Brad Fiedel - Composer (Music Score), Rob Young - Musical Direction/Supervision, Richard Kent Wilcox - Production Designer, Ralf Bode - Cinematographer, Barry W. Brolly - Set Designer, Rob Young - Sound/Sound Designer, Kerrie Cullen - Stunts, Tom Topor - Screenwriter
Based on the real-life gang rape of Cheryl Araujo that occurred at Big Dan's Bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts on March 6, 1983, this film was one of the first Hollywood films to deal with rape in a direct manner.
The story is about a working-class woman, Sarah Tobias (Foster), labeled as promiscuous. One night in a bar, she is viciously gang-raped by several drunk bar patrons, while drunken onlookers cheer them on. A district attorney, Kathryn Murphy (McGillis), is assigned to the rape case, but she is convinced by her superiors to let the rapists plead guilty to reckless endangerment and get a sentence that allows parole in less than a year. Sarah is angered by the deal because she considers it a light punishment and because she did not get to tell her story in court.
When Sarah is hospitalized after ramming her car into a pickup truck, whose driver (one of the witnesses who encouraged the rapists) crudely propositions her, Kathryn decides to prosecute the men who cheered the rape for criminal solicitation. Sarah's friend Sally, a waitress at the bar where the rape took place, picks three men out of a line-up, and they get three different attorneys for the ensuing trial. Sarah testifies that she was raped, while college student Kenneth Joyce, whose friend was one of the rapists, testifies to watching the rape prior to making a 911 call. After Kathryn's closing statement and a single summation from the three defense lawyers, the jury deliberates for a long time, asking several times for Ken's testimony to be reread to them. At the end, they find the three men guilty.
Originally, Sigourney Weaver and Kelly McGillis were going to star as the A.D.A. and Sarah respectively. Jonathan Kaplan feared that Jodie Foster wasn't sexy enough and decided to cast Kim Basinger for the part of Sarah; however, Basinger declined. Molly Ringwald, a popular teen idol of the time, wanted badly the role of Sarah, but her parents turned down her offer because they feared she didn't want to play a twenty-something hooker at a young age. Kaplan gave Foster the part and her performance in the film was ultimately praised.
Critical and scholarly reaction
Of the two trials in the film, Roger Ebert finds that the lesson of the "second trial may be the most important message this movie has to offer," that "for some men, the movie will reveal a truth that most women already know," of the damage caused by verbal sexual harassment.[1]
Some educators worry that this "educationally profitable" film's R rating "will receive V ratings and be subject to at least a presumption against curricular use in many public schools."[2]
Box Office reception
The film was a critical success garnering a 95% fresh rating on "Rotten tomatoes". It performed moderately at the box office with a total gross of $32,078,318 but is considered a success considering its $6 million budget.[3][4]
See also
Aestheticization of violence, an article which includes a discussion of Kaplan's use of a violent rape scene in The Accused.
^ Marjorie Heins, "Three Questions About Television Ratings" The V-Chip Debate: Content Filtering from Television to the Internet, ed. Monroe E. Price. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers (1998): 54
