Andrew Robinson
Only unavoidable spoilers will be present in this movie review. Beware, however, of the subject manner: “The Tale” deals with child abuse, and how a child may try to cope with that abuse. It is based on a true story.
The Tale is an R-rated HBO-produced movie starring the incredible Laura Dern (Jennifer Fox), Elizabeth Debicki (Mrs. G), Jason Ritter (Bill), Ellen Burstyn (Nettie), Common (Martin), and Isabelle Nelisse (Jenny). It is written and directed by Jennifer Fox, who has based the film off a story she wrote as a 13-year-old. As an adult, she realized that this story actually detailed horrific sexual abuse that she underwent as a child. In this sense, The Tale is very much an autobiography, which makes it all the more heartbreaking to watch on camera.
A quick synopsis of the film may go as such: Jennifer (Dern), a middle-aged woman, finds a story that she wrote as a 13-year-old that details her time spent at a horse-riding clinic taught by Mrs. G (Debicki), with help from Bill (Ritter). Initially, Jennifer reads over this story with the warmth associated with fond childhood memories. At the insistence of her mother (Burnstyn), however, she begins to realize something horrific: what she experienced as a child was far from wholesome. In fact, what she was subjected to was horrifying sexual abuse. The film jumps back and forth between the present day, which features Jennifer (Dern), as she comes to terms with this realization, and the past, which features the 13-year-old version of Jennifer, Jenny (Nelisse), as she is groomed by people she trusted.
Judging by the subject, The Tale is an extremely difficult movie to watch, and should only be watched by its intended audience: adults. I found myself having to pause the movie and take short breaks to breathe and clear my head in order to make it through the whole film. The Tale does not shy away from its intense, horrific subject manner, as characters use terms that predators tell innocent children (I will not repeat those phrases here, but many of them are centered around how the relationship between the molester and child is “too special to be understood by anyone else”), and the abuse itself is shown to a degree that movies rarely go. While, of course and thankfully, there is no nudity, it is clear what is going on. Furthermore, Jenny, is shown from the face-up as the abuse goes on. This makes for some of the most uncomfortable, nauseating scenes I have seen in film.
Dern does an absolutely fabulous job as a woman who realizes that a younger version of herself had crafted an elaborate lie to tell herself in order to protect her from something unbelievably heinous. It is absolutely heartbreaking to watch Dern realize just what went on when she was 13, and how it was far from the fictional story that she had crafted for herself in order to avoid the incredible pain and suffering that accompanies a realization of that magnitude. I’ve developed a huge liking for Dern after seeing her in Twin Peaks: The Return, and Big Little Lies over the past year, and her performance in The Tale is one that should garner Oscar recognition (if it will or not is a loaded question, given that the film was only released through HBO). She is entirely believable in a role that is incredibly difficult to play.
Ritter is great in a role that is also extremely hard to play. I’ve been watching Parenthood on Netflix recently; this is the only work of his that I had seen before The Tale. He takes on a role that many would never be willing to play, and does a hauntingly, despicably good job in said role.
Debicki (Mrs. G) may be the least engaging of the major roles (in my opinion), but she too does an adequate job in a difficult role. Acting as a bit of a mother figure for Jenny at first, Mrs. G seems to be loving and likable. As the movie goes along, her character evolves, and Debicki must make these evolutions seem believable. She does. Although I believe Mrs. G is a bit of an underdeveloped character, Debicki brings the character to life.
Burnstyn and Common are magnificent in small, yet important, roles. Burnstyn, who plays Jennifer’s mother, and Common, who plays Jennifer’s boyfriend, are key in helping Jennifer realize that what occurred all those years ago was, in fact, abuse, and helping her work through that horrible realization. Both have a relatively small amount of time on-screen, but both deliver when they are asked to do so.
Outside of Dern, Nelisse is the star here. She is tasked with portraying a pre-adolescent girl who is taken advantage of in horrible, unthinkable ways by people whom she loved, as she says multiple times throughout the movie. What is most tragic – and most difficult to portray – is the fact that she believes this abuse to be consensual; she believes everything that occurs is something that she has allowed. This is what allows her to survive through the ordeal; this is the lie she told herself for years and years after the abuse had taken place. This may be what makes The Tale so difficult to watch – the viewer knows that the abuse is coming; all the signs are there. The viewer knows that the shy, innocent little girl will be taken advantage of in the most despicable and horrific of ways. Yet, when it occurs, the nausea still comes to the viewer, especially as the abuse is shown in such excruciating detail. Nelisse is simply magnificent in a role that must have been extremely emotionally taxing for the 14-year-old actress. I cannot stress enough just how magnificent Nelisse is; just how heartbreaking and gut-wrenching her performance is.
The Tale is a harrowing film that cracks the list of the most difficult-to-watch films that I have ever seen. The story is extremely timely, given the #MeToo movement and Hollywood-wide reckoning that has taken place ever since multiple unbelievably brave women came out against film producer Harvey Weinstein. It is a story that is so painful to witness that it makes the viewer wonder just how difficult it must have been for Fox to go through it in real life; just how difficult it must have been for her to reread the story that she had written when she was 13, and realize that what she had thought had occurred – what she had told herself in order to survive – was actually something entirely different, something unfathomably worse.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to watch The Tale again – it’s just that emotionally draining and upsetting – but it has taken its rightful place as one of my favorite movies of all-time (#11, to be exact), and is one of the most important, brave films I have ever watched. I cannot recommend The Tale any more highly, but just know that it will be painful, it will be upsetting, and it is a film that no child should watch, under virtually any circumstances.
9.75/10
