You gotta feel for Julia. The young medical assistant takes a chance on the New York dating scene and visits Pierce at his spacious Manhattan loft alone. She even drinks the champagne he pours her ("Shipwrecked," he calls it). But in the big city, sometimes the worst case scenario in your head isn't even as bad as things can get: Julia is drugged, but conscious, as Pierce and three of his friends take turns raping and beating her, before leaving her for dead in a Laura Palmer bag by the river.
Poor Julia doesn't go to the cops, the hospital, or even a crisis center. She just tends to her wounds and tries to go back to her day-to-day, which, of course, is impossible. At a bar, she overhears a young woman talking about an unusual therapist who specializes in rape victims. She digs around, getting the attention of a leather-clad badass named Sadie (a commanding Tahyna Tozzi). Sadie takes her to Dr. Sgundud, who tells her that he'll take her on as a patient, but only if she completely gives herself over to him and his specialized program. Above everything else, that means she cannot take matters into her own hands; she is promised some sort of violent catharsis at some point, but going after the punks that raped her puts her squarely into "victim" territory, which the program is directly against.
I don't think I need to mention that the program may not be the most positive thing in the world, and pretty soon, the quiet Julia starts to come out of her shell, and goes after both her assailants and the program members who are constantly invading her privacy in their own way by monitoring her at all times.
If you've seen Abel Ferrara's MS. 45, then a lot of Matthew A. Brown's movie will seem familiar to you. That film also focused on a quiet (actually silent) young New Yorker who is repeatedly raped, and then goes on a non-specific revenge bent against predatory men on the streets of NYC. However, like MS. 45, the thing that defines JULIA is more its style and attitude than the specifics of its plot. Nothing that transpires will be that shocking to those familiar with the tropes of the rape-revenge genre (or the cult-like trappings of Dr. Sgundud's "program"), but it's the way that Brown and lead actress Ashley C. Williams (HUMAN CENTIPEDE) depict this story that makes it work.
The New York of JULIA is a dark, dangerous place, filled to the brim with seedy bars and even seedier adjacent back alleys. Every corner is a potential crime scene, and every man a potential violent criminal. The streets glow ominously and the light sources emanate softly from the buildings onto the people like inactive eavesdroppers. Everyone is either coldly indifferent or violently aggressive, and part of Julia's problem is losing the ability to distinguish between the two.
Williams is in nearly every scene of the film, but only speaks in a handful of them. She starts out the film mousy and bespectacled, and we watch her slowly transform into a self-assured, yet mad aggressor, but Williams' performance keeps us clued in to what's going on behind Julia's eyes. She has to convey the entire emotional narrative with her eyes, her body language, and her face, which gets progressively more arch and made-up as she goes further off the deep end. We have to simultaneously sympathize, pity, and fear her, knowing why she's doing whatever she's doing before we get a clear picture of her specific plans. It's a dangerous tight-rope of a performance, which the entire film hinges upon, and fortunately, Williams is able to create a human center for the sinister goings-on of the plot to center around.
There are moments of horrendous brutality of both the sexual and violent nature, but it's the mood and look of the piece that makes the greatest impact. There's a lyrical elegance to the film that recalls MS. 45, but there's a more personal, angry bent to it. Its New York City is filled with women who are either victimized by men or prey upon them, with no healthy relationships in between. There's no irony or cuteness here, just a vicious, raw portrayal of a woman cut off from morality by a life of victimization.
Very cool, confident debut from Mr. Brown. JULIA's not perfect, but it's largely visual, highly intimate and leaves a mark.
Come check JULIA out tonight at the TCL Chinese 6 in Hollywood as part of Screamfest, running through this Thursday the 23rd.
