The Tale (2018)

Director: Jennifer Fox
Stars: Elizabeth Debicki, Laura Dern, Ellen Burstyn
Runtime: 114 minutes

Synopsis: A woman filming a documentary on childhood rape victims starts to question the nature of her childhood relationship with her riding instructor and running coach.

Performances: 4/5
Screenplay: 4/5
Editing: 4/5
Cinematography: 4/5
Score/Soundtrack: 3/5

Verdict: Jennifer Fox's directorial debut, while definitely not perfect, was still a very impressive one, especially when taking into account how personal the story was to her.

Starring Laura Dern as Jennifer herself, the film follows our lead character's struggle to deal with the freshly brought back memories of a childhood trauma. The story is a deeply emotional one that doesn't shy away from showing disturbing images to emphasize the main theme of child abuse, making the experience of watching it a highly uncomfortable one as it should be. Most of the star studded cast do a great job at translating their characters' complexity and emotional instability to the viewers, with Elizabeth Debicki and Laura Dern delivering my favorite performances and Common my least favorite one, though thankfully he wasn't in the movie much. Fox also does a great job behind the camera in both the roles of director and writer. Despite it being her first major project, she takes a couple of artisitc risks I was genuinely surprised to see. Some worked, other didn't (especially ones included solely to deliver information to the audience), but I admire the intention and risk-taking nonetheless.
"The Tale" may be a TV movie, but it never feels like one thanks to a solid job by almost everyone in it. It's both an interesting and important watch that deals with disturbing themes in a very effective way. It definitely contains upsetting scenes that are hard to watch, but they never felt empty of meaning and only included for shock value, quite the opposite. So check it out if it seems interesting to you and let me know if you enjoyed it!

FINAL GRADE: 8/10