MOVIE REVIEW : Rape Message Is Preached, Not Dramatized, in ‘Believe’

With “A Reason to Believe” writer-director Douglas Tirola makes a courageous, thoughtful attempt to tackle the very serious problem of rape on the campus, but unfortunately he’s come up with an illustrated sermon rather than an involving drama. It’s a picture in which everything that happens is all too credible but seldom comes alive, despite conscientious acting. As it so often happens with such films, those most in need of receiving its message are the least likely to hear it. Its greatest value will be as an educational tool for women’s groups encouraging women to speak out on sexual abuse, rape in particular.

Filmed at Tirola’s alma mater, Miami University, the story’s setting is a typical large institution of higher learning with a strong fraternity and sorority system. It stars Allison Smith as Charlotte, a pretty, popular, sometimes bitchy and brittle young woman who’s miffed when her boyfriend Wesley (Danny Quinn), unable to attend his fraternity’s big Viking costume bash because of his uncle’s funeral, tells her he doesn’t want her to go without him. Clearly used to having her way, Charlotte goes, gets drunk, lies down on Wesley’s bed, where his best friend Jim (Jay Underwood) starts making unwanted advances. Too wasted by booze to fight him off but not too far gone to protest verbally, Charlotte ends up being raped by him.

To Tirola’s credit this all-crucial scene is not only discreetly filmed but also allows us to understand how Jim could believe in his own mind that this sexual encounter did not constitute rape because Charlotte did not put up that much of a struggle. He’s sorry about what happened but is not about to admit to himself, let alone anyone else, that Charlotte was in no condition to stage much of a resistance.

By the next day a numbed Charlotte is further devastated to discover that not only can she not keep her fate (witnessed by a voyeuristic frat bro) secret, but that no one, starting with Wesley, is prepared to believe her. Gradually, she allows herself to be recruited by Linda (Georgia Emelin), the fiery leader of the campus women’s group, to speak out and demand a hearing from weak-willed, publicity-sensitive university administrators.

At this point the preachiness, present from the start, takes over the film in earnest. If the film devolves into a lecture, it is one that does try to cover all the key issues: the very difficult business facing a woman attempting to prove that she has been raped, and then getting the powers that be to do anything about it.

Tirola’s view includes that sticking point between some men and women: that a woman has absolutely no responsibility whatsoever in regard to her attire and behavior, no matter how provocative, in the matter of rape. Tirola also seems to be aware that a man can after all be falsely accused.

Not surprisingly, the fraternity system, which has never been presented on the screen in a balanced fashion, is shown in the worst possible light, with Wesley’s fraternity dominated by a bunch of crude male chauvinist party animals. But then none of the film’s key people, with the exception of Linda, is Phi Beta Kappa material in the first place.

* MPAA rating: R, for strong sexuality and language, substance abuse and a rape. Times guidelines: The film is inappropriate for pre-teens, even if accompanied by a parent.

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‘A Reason to Believe’

Allison Smith: Charlotte Byrne

Jay Underwood: Jim Current

Danny Quinn: Wesley Grant

Georgia Emelin: Linda Berryman

A Castle Hill release of Pioneer Pictures presentation. Writer-director Douglas Tirola. Producers Ged Dickersin, Tirola. Cinematographer Sarah Cawley. Editor Sabine Hoffman. Costumes Yvens De Thelismond. Music Production designer Carol O’Neil. Art director Constance Lemasson. Set decorator Tracy Keegan. Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.