✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United States, Germany · 2018
1h 55m
Director Jennifer Fox
Starring Laura Dern, Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter
Genre Drama, TV Movie
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An investigation into one woman’s memory as she‘s forced to re-examine her first sexual relationship and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.
In The Tale, Fox takes an experience that’s far, far too common — and newly visible in American culture — and mines it for its emotional heft, turning it into an interrogation of how those who’ve experienced assault and abuse go on to navigate their lives. It is a story of a woman taking her life back, nested in a film serving the same purpose.
It takes a remarkably assured artist to make all this work, and Fox is savvy about how she eases us into her complicated narrative.
An immense, brave, and genuinely earth-shaking self-portrait that explores sexual assault with a degree of nuance and humility often missing from the current discourse, The Tale is undeniably primed for the #MeToo movement, but it’s also so much bigger than that.
The Playlist by Gregory Ellwood
Fox knows firsthand the events that occur to Dern’s character in her feature narrative debut because they happened to her. And beyond its creative success and failures, her willingness to tell her own story in such graphic detail is a startlingly brave act.
The Guardian by Jordan Hoffman
I want more people to see The Tale because it’s such an innovative, honest and important film. It is a landmark, and Laura Dern is absolutely extraordinary. But I know for certain I’ll never watch it again.
The Tale is a soul-excavating reckoning with the suppression of trauma and a testament to the courage required for a victim to confront the most damaging moments of their lives.
The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin
One of the singular aspects of Fox's script is that it honors the messiness of real-life events, even if that means the film itself sometimes feels messy.
This is an excellent, poignant, and amazing film that will stick with you. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s a must-see, even though watching it is a very difficult thing to do.
Both a natural extension of Fox’s career to date and a complete about-face, The Tale marks her first narrative feature, but only because traditional documentary wouldn’t do justice to this messy, meandering investigation into her traumatic first sexual experience, for the incidents it depicts are true, “at least as far I know.”
Screen International by Tim Grierson
Brilliantly constructed and heartrendingly performed, The Tale feels as cathartic and cleansing as a primal scream.
Sex makes us men and women. Or both things.
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