The Accused

Dir: Jonathan Kaplan

1988

****

When most people think Academy Award and Jodie Foster they think Silence of the Lambs but she won once before and for a much stronger performance. She has since said that at the time she thought her own performance was bad and was close to chucking in acting and going back to school but changed her mind when nominated for many awards. Quite a few actors turned down Foster’s role while others fought for it, including: Andie MacDowell, Annabeth Gish, Jennifer Beals, Alyssa Milano, Uma Thurman, Heather Locklear, Ally Sheedy, Valerie Bertinelli, Jennifer Grey, Meg Ryan, Mia Sara, Kelly Preston, Kristin Davis, Joan Cusack, Kelly LeBrock, Kim Basinger, Madonna, Demi Moore, Daryl Hannah, Diane Lane, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brooke Shields, Mariel Hemingway, Kay Lenz and Virginia Madsen. Many of these actors turned down the role of Sarah because they felt the film was exploitative trash masquerading as sincere social commentary which I can understand when reading the script. Beverly D'Angelo, Jessica Lange, Eileen Brennan, Anjelica Huston, Sissy Spacek, Dianne Wiet, Blythe Danner, Mary Gross, Cybill Shepherd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Goldie Hawn, Teri Garr, Catherine O'Hara, Glenn Close, Amy Irving, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen, Sally Field, Meryl Streep, Kim Basinger, Kate Capshaw and Kathleen Turner were all considered for the role of Kathryn and Jane Fonda, Ellen Barkin, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Debra Winger and Geena Davis have since admitted that they regret turning the role down. I personally think Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis were perfect in their roles. The pair were close and had a good chemistry, McGillis was top of everyone’s list following Top Gun and Foster was desperate to show she was a good adult actor after being all but dismissed as a child performer. I’m just glad Jonathan Kaplan directed the film instead of Brian De Palma who was originally assigned to direct the movie. Based on the 1983 gang rape of Cheryl Araujo in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the resulting trial, which received national coverage, The Accused explored the legal process of rape prosecutions and how frustratingly unfair they often are. Foster plays a young girl called Sarah who is gang raped in a bar one night while McGillis plays an assistant district attorney who is assigned to the rape case. Due to a lack of evidence, they offer a plea bargain with the rape defendants that requires some jail time. They make a plea bargain to charges of reckless endangerment, which means the men will definitely serve time, while taking the rape case to court would have been risky. Sarah is enraged by the deal, as there is no acknowledgment on the record that the men raped her. When one of the men who watched her being raped while cheering and shouting sees her out shopping, he immediately begins flirting. He then admits he was there and starts taunting her, causing Sarah to panic and crash her car into his. Racked with guilt that she didn’t do more, assistant district attorney Kathryn Murphy hatches a plan to prosecute the cheering eyewitnesses with criminal solicitation, thus punishing them and getting the rape on record – extending the original sentences. The film ends as a courtroom drama, with the flashback to the night of the rape becoming the films pivotal scene. When many think about rape in film they think of Gaspar Noe’s 2002 brutal masterpiece Irreversible but The Accused remains the only Hollywood film to show the graphic rape of a women. Irreversible is another story that I’m not going to get into here but I would argue that the true brutal nature is shown in The Accused for what it is and I believe it was important to show it as such. It’s not a subject you should dance around, sometimes in needs to be shown for the despicable crime that it is. Foster latter said that she remembers little of the scene and thinks she might have passed out, while one of the male actors in the scene had to run off set and be sick a couple of times. I can see why many actors overlooked the script – it does feel a bit ‘made for TV’ at times but the acting is superb, the rape scenes and the court language are handled brilliantly. I found McGillis’s character to be fairly emotive but the defense lawyers were very convincing – I’ve been on a jury several times so I can say that. Kelly McGillis was offered the role of Sarah but decided to go for the role of Kathryn instead as she openly stated that she was raped several years previous – she couldn’t play the victim but she wanted to be part of the project. The film also explores the idea of guilt brilliantly and suggests that ‘innocent bystander’ can’t always be used as an excuse. It’s one of those great low budget dramas that has since become forgotten for no good reason. It handled very delicate issues and did so with confidence and integrity – which is pretty rare in modern cinema with the studios it seems becoming more and more cautious of such issues.