I Accuse

To deal with some of the comments made by others, this is a film made for Canadian television. As such it is well made, but does not have the fanciest production values. It does a good job of capturing the attitudes and social mores of a small town on the Canadian prairie and how the citizens would react when confronted with something they don't want to believe.

This is the first film where the former Olympic athlete and model Estella Warren is given the chance to carry a film by herself and she does an excellent job, making me wish that she would spend more time making films in Canada and less time in Hollywood. where I don't think she is taken seriously enough as an actress.

Basically the film explores how society reacts when a woman from a blue collar background (Warren) accuses a prominent small town doctor (Hannah) of rape. On a larger scale it is also an exploration of problems involved in many rape cases, where the accused is a prominent individual, and the victim becomes not only a victim of her attacker, but of society as a whole.

Warren makes the character believable. She actually underplays the emotional aspects, which makes her more believable and anchors the film in reality. As her accused attacker Hannah does a good job of playing outraged and smarmy. His attitude, especially during some of the final scenes in court are both hard to take and frightening in their arrogance.

Overall this film does a good job of exploring issues which society does not like to face and builds suspense and emotional power without resorting to the overdone histrionics that might be expected from American television or Hollywood's dealing with such an explosive issue.

A good pace and important true story that holds the audience attention.

It is not a Hollywood budget, but the powerful story and good acting help make that irrelevant.

It is sad that this woman had to go through so much.

There is room for improvement but I feel it comes down to budget.

A good movie.

I really like Estella Warren as an actress, but I felt that her lines were awful. I mean, her character in the movie was so obnoxious that I felt little sympathy for her and I definitely couldn't relate to her. The movie was kind of neat because it was a true story. I am from Saskatchewan and I remember hearing about the incident on the news. It was good that they did a lot of filming in Saskatchewan and I even know one of the guys that they had play a scientist, which is really neat. The movie could have been good if they had made Estella Warren's character more likable and more like a real person. The other characters were quite good and I liked how they made the whole DNA part look so scientific.

The script was simplistic and predicable. The characters are stereo typical. The acting was flat and had very little depth. Although it is based on a true event the story still needed some work There was no clear reason for the ending, as it was not explained at all why it ended as it did.

Enjoyed the movie on Movie network Sunday Nov 30/03. Felt that the flashback scenes to the rape was shown too many times. Once would have been enough. the point was made. Estella Warren did a good job in her role. Reminded me of an Erin Brockovich type character but of course in a different vain.