Themes: Message From God, Crisis of Faith, Religious Zealotry
Main Cast: Mimi Rogers, David Duchovny, Patrick Bauchau, Carole R. Davis, Will Patton
Release Year: 1991
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
An audacious film about faith, The Rapture is a contemporary fantasy that keeps its feet unnervingly planted in reality even as reality starts to collapse. Mimi Rogers, in a strikingly accomplished performance, stars as Sharon, a telephone operator who spends her off-hours engaging in casual group sex to blot out her boredom. By chance, she becomes aware of a small Christian sect whose members believe that they have found a child with the gift of prophecy who has seen the upcoming end times. Slowly but steadily, Sharon finds herself drawn to this group, and one night she abruptly turns a corner, renounces her old life, and embraces fundamentalism with passion. She marries one of her former lovers, Randy (David Duchovny), who takes up Sharon's evangelical fervor to atone for his past as a hired killer, and they have a daughter. All seems peaceful until Randy is unexpectedly murdered, and Sharon takes her child to the desert to await the rapture that will bring the chosen to heaven. The film neither supports nor scoffs at Sharon's views, and the superb performances add immeasurably to a film that presents the unbelievable (and unthinkable) at face value, making it seem oddly plausible in the process. Michael Tolkin has also written and/or directed such films as The Player (1992), directed by Robert Altman, and The New Age (1994), both of which also skewer contemporary American society as shallow, materialistic, and desperate for something authentic to believe in. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
The Rapture boldly goes where few movies have gone before -- straight into Judgment Day and beyond. It has few parallels in film history, as it attempts to portray the end of the world as if Biblical interpretations were literally true. Writer/director Michael Tolkin also wrote and directed the satirical The New Age and wrote the deeply sarcastic Robert Altman masterpiece The Player. He appears to be attempting a deep-level satire about Messianic religious cultists with this story about a phone information operator (the audaciously offbeat Mimi Rogers) who converts to fundamentalist end-of-days Christianity. But the film brooks no open judgments about its heroine's faith, which drives her to sacrifice her own child in search of salvation. Though the plot concerning Rogers' conversion seems much too pat, the actress redeems the movie's believability with her unique brand of making risky, implausible roles (such as in Bulletproof Heart) seem realistic. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Linda Albertano - Angel; Christian Belnavis - Older Boy; Rustam Branaman - Conrad; Scott Burkholder - 1st Evangelist; Darwyn Carson - Maggie; Kimberly Cullum - Mary; Patrick Dollaghan - Executive; Marvin Elkins - Bartender; Joshua Farrell - Cashier; Vince Grant - 2nd Evangelist; Terri Hanauer - Paula; Henry Kingi - Angel; Michael David Lally - Man on Television; James LeGros - Tommy; Stephanie Menuez - Diana; Kerry Leigh Michaels - Guard; DeVaughn Walter Nixon - 1st Boy; Denney Pierce - Rock Climber; Andrew Pressman - Manager; Natalie Radford; Douglas Roberts - Louis; Sam Vlahos - Wayne; Dick Anthony Williams - Henry; Victoria Williams - Faithful; Bojan Bazelli; Deborah Aquila
Credit
Kathleen M. McKernin - Art Director, Karyn Wagner - Costume Designer, Giovanna Melton - Costume Designer, Michael Tolkin - Director, Suzanne Fenn - Editor, Laurie Parker - Executive Producer, Deborah Moore - Executive Producer, Thomas Newman - Composer (Music Score), Robin Standefer - Production Designer, Bojan Bazelli - Cinematographer, Cindy Hornickel - Production Manager, Eric McLeod - Production Manager, Karen Koch - Producer, Nancy Tenenbaum - Producer, Nick Wechsler - Producer, Susan Benjamin - Set Designer, Kane Hodder - Stunts, Steve Hulin - Stunts, Michael Tolkin - Screenwriter, Gerald Di Pego - Screenwriter, Michael Jackson - Storyboard Artist
The film tells the story of Sharon (Rogers), a young Los Angeles woman who engages in a swinging, libidinous lifestyle with her male partner. She comes into contact with a sect that advises her that a true Rapture is imminent. In time, she comes to accept this belief herself and becomes a born-again Christian. She begins a new, pious lifestyle, eventually marrying and having a daughter. When her husband Randy (Duchovny) is killed in a senseless murder, however, she begins to question the benevolence of God. She believes she must wait in the desert for the coming of the Rapture but eventually loses patience. At her daughter's urging, she decides to hasten her and her daughter's ascendance to heaven. She kills her daughter with a gunshot, but is unable to take her own life afterwards, afraid she'll be condemned as a suicide. She is arrested and imprisoned.
Until this point, the film appears to be a story about a born-again cultist whose beliefs eventually lead to murder, but, in a twist ending, the Rapture does indeed arrive, and the saved are taken to Heaven. Still, Sharon refuses to renounce her anger at God for His cruelty. Her young daughter begs her to accept God back into her heart so she can join her husband and daughter in Heaven, but Sharon declines, preferring to remain in a purgatory-like landscape for eternity.
