Descent

It's excruciating experience to see "Descent" in one single watch. It shows how much humanity we sacrificed for the sake of vengeance. Just like a great companion "Hard Candy", this movie can easily teared down your emotion and left it as open-wounded.

Rosario Dawson is Maya, a shy college student who, just like any hopeful young girls, wishes to meet a perfect man. At the party, she met Jared (Chad Faust), a passionate young man. He quickly makes a move to Maya. With all beautiful words and gestures he used, Maya finally let her guard down and completely trust that, this is the man whom she can spend a life with.

Then, horror happened. Maya was brutally raped by Jared. Her ideal world seemed to crumble right in front of her face. Maya delved into the darkness as she spends her life in her own silent world. She works in a clothing shop where she just ignores everybody else. Spending time in dance club where drugs, boozes and stranger intimacy are her new friends.

Months later, the story comes to last act when Maya and Jared meet again in the classroom. As insured, she has a plan. And it's a plan that Jared couldn't possibly think of. Strangely, he plays along with it. What we have here in the last 20 minutes is the most disturbing, depraved, twisted act that anybody couldn't possibly imagine.

One can think of how cheerfulness to see our heroic trio in "Death Proof" got their revenge. The result is comedic-like, ultra-surreal ending that sure to satisfy by fans of exploitation films. "Descent" ignores the whole concept of exploitation thing and stick it firmly to the ground with its truthfulness. It's an act of vengeance in its purest form. And it goes on and on and on and nobody seemed to be happy about it.

First time director, Talia Lugacy did an admirable job to explore this twisted world. One might think that she's overdone with Maya's downfall by putting excessive madness into the protagonist that almost overkill it. But with this powerful opening and ending, It's obvious that she has a rightfulness to tell this story straight.

One can also admire the lead (and first time producer), Rosario Dawson, to put herself into an interesting career path. It's the role that any praises for her acting overshadowed by its controversial. But it's also a role that will re-define her body of work and create a significant part in her life. As she feels that she's capable to do everything from now on.

In the final moment where the film just simply captures at Maya's face, it's effective. As they're both haunting and yet, strangely beautiful. There's not a single moment to show our protagonist satisfied in what she did, even she just thought so. It shows how much we wrong thought about "Revenge is a dish best served cold". Because it's ain't.

I rented this on DVD and I kind of feel bad since Dawson and Lugacy are so earnest about it in the DVD comments. It's not a bad movie exactly, but it's one of those films that desperately wants to be a deep comment on human nature while not realizing that its story is practically a genre. Plus, it is a little simplistic about the issue in a lot of ways, and the characters' behavior often strains belief. I'd say its a film that you would get something out of if you don't have a lot of film/TV/literature/life behind you (to be honest, I've seen almost exactly the same story in horror comics even). Otherwise, its point has been made before and more artfully. And that gets to the big problem, which is that it really doesn't have much of cinematic interest to it besides the point. It ends up being a fairly bland movie overall that invests everything in the idea that the basic story will be shocking and compelling, and it doesn't really pay off.

Love Rosario Dawson, think she's one of the finest actresses of the modern era.

Descent seems to be more about self-empowerment than anything else. It's the consistent undertone in everything in the film. The dialog is flat, the characters seemingly intentionally bland and one sided. The only consistency is the representation of self-empowerment in the characters and Rosario's journey from self empowerment to loss of empowerment and back again.

Pitching this as a rape classic isn't appropriate, and that's probably why so many people don't enjoy the film. The standard 'rape' audience wouldn't particularly like this film, and maybe that's the point? The film asks more questions than it answers, and it does confront it's target audience, whether they like it or not. There's a compelling relationship between the characters and the target audience and while the film doesn't slap the audience across the face with self-righteous audacity it does engage the viewer for what may or may not be, all the wrong reasons.

Descent is a good film which IMHO is severely under-rated.

Some genre films need to be dressed up. This one was an exception. Taken on its own merit, it's a dressed down version of the horror genre film. With minimal special effects, it manages to be a psychological study of sorts, with a simple yet existential theme - who gets hit by the bus, and why her? It's not a great film, yet because there is little contrived about it, the story works. Subtle, and all about the interactions of the characters. Actually, there is one contrivance in the opening scenes, but it may have been placed there to simply set the tone for what's to come. I very much appreciate the balance of male and female energy, and would not recommend this story to anyone interested in more than people reacting to a physical and psychological challenge. You will enjoy the film if you have some empathy, value the need for a bit of adventure in your life, and wonder "What would I do in this situation?"

For once, I finally get to see a movie that portrays the reality of the aftermath of rape. This film digs deep into the psyche of what it can feel like after being violated and humiliated by another human being. Everyone talks about the ending but the true horror of the film is the very long middle segments that explores Dawson's character true descent into depression and darkness. She just doesn't "move on". She goes from living a normal college life to exploring the dark side of pain and trauma by failing out of school, drugs, alcohol and finally revenge. This is not a pure revenge story. It's more about the thin line between being prey or being the predator. At the end of the film , Rosario's character still feels empty, she still has a void. She crosses the line to become the predator but found out that it's extremely easy to become a predator. The difficult part of life is healing. With that said, the revenge is pretty sweet. I did not see that coming at all and honestly enjoyed it from the viewers perspective but not from the perspective of reality. Excellent film.