Things Behind the Sun

This got and Emmy and Independent Spirit nomination for Don Cheadle, and an Indy nomination for Kim Dickens, who plays Sherrie, a rock singer in Cocoa Beach, Florida who was raped. Cheadle is her manager and former lover.

Sherrie doesn't know why her life is messed up, and why she can't move out of a life of promiscuity and drunkenness, because she has repressed the rape. Owen (Gabriel Mann) knows about the rape, and is doing a story on the girl behind the song she wrote. He is doing it because he was involved in Sherrie's rape. He has demons of his own to exorcise.

This was a powerful story of how a teen rape can cause permanent damage, not only to the person raped, but to everyone in her life from that day forward. The dysfunctional relationships that one experiences through life can be traced back to that rape.

The ending was a little to pat, but that's movies.

One of the favorites at the Sedona Film festival. Hoping this important film gets a broad distribution. Outstanding performances, well written, everything comes together in a powerful yet disturbingly emotional manner. Cheadle's kitchen scene was phenomenal. Must see!

I've seen. Slow and painful this story gets into the psyche of the victims unlike most other stories treating the same subject. The stories and writing style of Joyce Carol Oates came to mind through the intentionally slow, methodical pacing revealing each layer of the painful retelling of the victims' stories.

Arquette gives a brilliant performance as does Cheedle and Stoltz. Gabrielle Mann comes off a little too 'waah, waah, Mr. Sensitive author' but there's an honesty that rings true in his performance and works nicely with the others.

I think the only way this movie could improve is to perform it on stage. It has an intimacy that could resonate much more effectively then on the screen. All in all, I highly recommend it.

The good parts of this movie, apparently inspired by a true story, makes me wish it was better as a whole. Kim Dickens is great as a troubled singer still haunted by a gang rape as a teenager. Don Cheadle as her manager and ex-lover has stereotypical characteristics, but gives a very good performance (his final words and expression in the scene with the writer was classic). Eric Stolz is excellent as well. And, the scenes at the music magazine was interesting, if incomplete. The whole movie, however, also has an incomplete feeling to it. The passion and message is there, and the brutal honesty about rape and its effects on all involved valuable. Nonetheless, the movie drags too often and often feels incoherent. Also, the writer is a rather pathetic character, and I got tired of him mighty fast. A better script would have made this movie much better ... as is, it is a worthy misfire.

...is something Allison Anders expresses in her films, and wow, filming in the house where she herself was raped as a child shows her engagement with the movie. It's her compassionate and tough look at how many lives rape irreversibly affects. Films about rape or child molestation aren't probably going to be box office smashes anytime soon, but don't deny yourself this beautiful film just because the subject material is uncomfortable. Great dialogue, strong acting (especially by Kim Dickens and Don Cheadle), and the usual great script and direction by Alison Andres. Listen to the DVD commentary afterwards for more on this amazing film and the artist behind its creation, Ms. Andres.