Lautloser Regen

A pro-choicers nightmare, an anti-choicers wetdream! This is a film for everyone. It's very slow, so if you're looking for explosions, gun fights, car chases, etc, just move on. If however, you don't mind a film that is a fake documentary that makes you think, this is it. As a pro-choice person, it reminds me that the fight will NEVER be over. To the anti-choice, it gives them a happy glimpse into the future they are trying to create. Of course, this won't be good enough for the h4rDk0r3 extremists who think abortionists and women who have abortions should be put to death, but I'm certain they'd still find it entertaining and would enjoy sneering at the comments on womens rights. - This movie made me sad. One of my mothers cousins was unable to ever have children because of a botched illegal abortion she had while young. She is lucky she didn't die... I hope to never return to those days. - YMMV, but I loved it. Of course, I have unusual tastes...

This movie could have been an interesting look at the abortion debate, however what you get is a one-sided movie that is meant to provoke paranoia.

The movie over-indulges in perhaps one of my biggest pet peeves -- instead of letting me decide how I feel about a character and their views, it telegraphs what I'm supposed to feel, which is okay when characters are given dimension, however these characters are all pretty one-sided -- the pro-choice characters are portrayed as good but victimized people, while the pro-life side is portrayed as ominous, evil, vindictive and manipulative. No dimensions, no shades of gray, just black and white, pro-choice good and pro-life bad.

Let me add one caveat, I am not pro-life and my feelings on this movie are not based on my feelings about abortion. I would have felt the same if the movie had reversed the roles and made the pro-choice people "evil", much like you see on TBN or the like...

I caught this movie by chance because the TV was on . . . knew nothing about it. I saw the "2042 A.D." notation at the beginning and I decided to watch it since I like science fiction.

Only a few minutes in, the film revealed its pro-choice propagandist objective. Since I pay close attention to social issues in politics, I continued to watch. At the first commercial break I read reviews written at the time of its release, which mostly remarked that it was the most boring 85 minutes a person could experience.

However, now after more than twenty years, the film is quite interesting -- not for its quality but for its "hits and misses" at predicting the future. For example, there is mention of economic expansion through the end of the twentieth century, followed by a pull-back causing Americans to believe that the nation needed to be reclaimed -- apparently by criminalizing abortion. The writer correctly predicted the pro-life trend in America for the next few decades, but attributed it to the wrong reasons. In reality, ever since 1973, science has provided ever-increasing evidence that life begins too soon after fertilization for most Americans to support abortion on demand even at ever-decreasing gestation periods.

A more reasoned prediction would be that IF the unborn in America were defined as persons with the constitutional right to life (and thus Roe v. Wade overturned), it would happen BECAUSE society as a whole gravitated in the same direction (as opposed to increased polarization), and thus the extent of the punishment for illegal abortion would be less controversial than this film presents.

Although abortion advocates may see the film as showing both pro-choice and pro-life viewpoints, I could find only one instance of a pro-life message: A Catholic priest describes the gruesome details of tearing a fetus limb-from-limb in the womb or alternatively burning it to death with chemicals. Otherwise, the film is 100% pro-choice and anti-Christian.

The writer's prediction concerning feminism (and male/female relations) was far from the mark, at least for the first 20 years after release of the film. Certainly feminist advocacy has shifted since 1992, but to predict that women would lose so-called rights and societal stature was ridiculous -- apparently it was presented as an extreme claim in order to prompt a reaction.

Firstly in 1992, when this film was made, and today, the US has and does give MORE rights to women when it comes to abortion than Sweden does. Yet this bizarre film has the protagonist going to Sweden to get an abortion.

Newsflash: in Europe people LEAVE Sweden to get abortions. today and for decades in Sweden after 18 weeks women cannot have an "at will" abortion, there must be a threat to the woman's health. In the US the average is 20-22 weeks.

this is a movie everybody who's even remotely interested in abortion should see, especially male persons. the actors are brilliant (I've never seen Jeff Daniels in a movie like this...) and the story is, though filmed with modest means, very compelling, even exciting. the story takes place in a future where abortion is illegal in the USA. a young women who's pregnant goes to sweden in order to abort her baby and gets convicted for her abortion when she goes back to the states. the movie's filmed in an interesting way. it's mostly made of short scenes where the people involved directly or indirectly in the story talk about their experiences and thoughts and what has happened and why they think it has happened to a female reporter.