Shame no more

A filmmaker confronts her childhood sexual abuse in HBO’s ‘The Tale’

There are women, young and old, who’ve kept secrets and have a tale to tell. Fifty-nine year-old documentarian Jennifer Fox may give some the courage to do so by telling her own story.

Fox’s dramatized feature debut, “The Tale,” recalls Fox’s first sexual encounters—when she was a minor—with a man old enough to be her father. It is a memoir of a middle-aged woman coming to terms with repressed, hazy memories by going on an investigative journey to clarify the truth, discover its lingering ramifications, and confront them.

“The Tale” premiered to stunned audiences at January’s Sundance Film Festival and is now on HBO.

With disturbing yet valiant candor, Fox tells her story through two on-screen surrogates: Laura Dern, a “Jennifer” who goes on the journey that Fox did, and Isabelle Nélisse, the early-teen Jennifer portrayed in flashbacks that lay out the predatory process of her abusers.

Eventually, it includes lengthy real-time depictions of the abuse itself.

It’s a bold choice on multiple levels, though Fox exercised care through shot and editorial choices, body doubles, and visual effects so that Nélisse was never required to simulate sexual activity with thirty-eight year old actor Jason Ritter.

That precision, however, never plays like a diluted cheat. On the contrary, it’s convincing to the point of nausea, and repulsive even before those moments. Subtle, seemingly inconsequential looks and touches by Ritter’s Bill—and by his partner/accomplice Mrs. G (Elizabeth Debicki)—are weighted by the perversity of their intent. It turns the stomach even now to consider the depth of calculation.

In other hands this could feel lurid, but under Fox’s confessional lead it’s a safe, honest space. Only someone who’s suffered this abuse could make a film this frank, unsettling, and true (at times truly sick), yet sensitive.

Everyone involved here has summoned some courage, not the least of which is Ritter who plays the pedophile, but also Nélisse who is the adolescent mark. Set in the ‘60s, Bill and Mrs. G run a horse riding summer camp, a safe haven that serves as the trap for would-be victims. They zero in on the most vulnerable targets—like Jennifer—whose home lives are dysfunctional and lacking in
affirmation.

Pitching a free-love ethos, they boost Jennifer’s confidence while also playing to her anxieties and fears with strategic manipulation. Making her feel empowered is their seduction, every encouragement a set-up for the kill.

Dern’s Jennifer—a smart, sophisticated adult—must admit what happened, how damaged she was and still is, realizing that things she considered normal actually aren’t, and how abuse distorted her own reason, objectivity, and common sense. Most poignant is her internal conversation with her younger self.

“The Tale” is a personal reckoning that could trigger painful memories. But broached with intentional purpose and courage similar to Fox’s, it could also be the first group therapy session that many victims have been afraid to seek. Hopefully it won’t be their last.