The Tale review: Documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox makes an impressive, emotionally-charged, deeply personal debut dramatic feature with this impressive opener to the 2018 Sundance London festival.
The Tale review by Paul Heath.
The Tale review
There’s a moment halfway through Jennifer Fox’s outstanding debut dramatic feature where Laura Dern’s university professor asks one of her female students to respond to a really rather personal, sexual question in a crowded room full of her peers. Its a blunt tactic used to assist their interviewing technique, one that Fox’s autobiographical tale takes throughout, and while her film is also a very slow-burner, has no fear in representing a truthful, forthright and absolutely fearless account of the filmmaker’s devastating past.
Dern is Jennifer Fox. Fox was abused when she was 13-years-old and this feature documents the path she took later in life, looking back to her younger days when she was groomed by a much older man. That older man is Bill (Jason Ritter), a divorcee who is having an affair with Mrs. G (Elizabeth Debicki), an young English woman who runs a horse farm in the country during the early 1970s. Now a successful documentary filmmaker and lecturer in the same subject, Fox one day receives a desperate call from her elderly mother (Ellen Burstyn), who has found a 35-year-old letter from her daughter, one in which she recounts a relationship with a forty-year-old male, an event she was oblivious to.
The Tale review
The unearthing of the three-decade-old letter stirs old emotions in Fox and she gradually, through a cleverly constructed narrative structure, recounts the memories of her past– an older Fox seemingly interacting with her younger self and vice-versa. The abuse is examined as a relationship from the eyes of the younger Jenny, a feeling that turns to resentment and anger as the older version of herself reexamines the abuse at the people, as well as Bill, who facilicated it.
It’s an emotional, very stirring piece of work – one which couldn’t have been easy for the filmmaker to transplant onto the screen in dramatic form. While it is a drama, The Tale has very documentary feel to it – obviously due to the massively personal and intimate involvement Fox has. It’s very difficult to watch in places – we know where everything is leading – and when we are shown the hideous event, Fox is both unforgiving and fearless in depicting it all on screen.
The performances are exceptional – Dern especially – in absolutely flooring turn as the tortured Fox. An Emmy nomination for the actor is an absolute shoe-in (the film has been snapped up by HBO for its domestic territory), while the supporting cast are also fearless in their commitment and execution.
The Tale is one of those films that is deeply affecting and harrowing experience and, with the greatest of respect, not one you’d like to repeat. As an objective work though, it is jaw-dropping, excellently crafted, acted and sincerely told. Put simply, on of the most powerful pieces of cinema you’ll see all year.
The Tale review by Paul Heath, May 2018.
The Tale was reviewed at the 2018 Sundance London Film Festival.
