Bastard out of Carolina began as a semi-autobiographical novel written by Dorothy Allison in the early 1990’s and adapted a few years later by first time director Angelica Huston. The subject matter and tone of the film was as such that none of the major studios wanted to release it and it ended up debuting on Showtime where it was reviewed favorably and struck a chord with audiences, especially those who had either experienced or knew someone who had experienced childhood sexual abuse. The film attempts to portray not only the ugliness of such a crime but how a woman can be aware of the abuse happening to her child but feel she is powerless to leave the man who is responsible for it even as the physical abuse escalated to rape. It’s not a pleasant topic and this film doesn’t shy away from the horrors of it.
We begin the story with Anney Boatwright (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a young unwed woman who is in late stage pregnancy. She is thrown through the windshield of a vehicle during a traffic accident and ends up in the hospital giving birth to a daughter, Ruth Anne (nicknamed Bone because she’s so small like a knuckle bone). Born out of wedlock and the father out of the picture Anney has to contend with having her daughter’s birth certificate brand the young girl as a bastard child. Eventually Anney weds but the new husband dies shortly afterwards in another vehicle accident. She marries again, this time to Ron Eldard (Glen Waddell), an ill tempered man who soon after turns his temper on Bone, first molesting her, then beating her with a belt over even minor trespasses. Anney is aware of the beatings, shielding her husband from the law by refusing to turn him in when Bone’s injuries land her in the hospital. Eventually the rest of Anney’s family find out and take Bone away from the two, leading to Anney and Ron getting separated, something Ron blames on Bone and he’s determined to get back at her as well as use the girl to make Anney come back to him. This leads to a scene so heinous followed immediately by a confrontation between Anney and Ron that ends in an unexpected and frustratingly way.
The subject of childhood sexual abuse is a tricky one to get right without alienating the audience. It is a subject everybody should find repellant, yet there are those people out there who commit these kinds of violations against the innocence of youth. It’s an appalling reality that we hear about all the time in the media yet the subject, for most of us, is not a personal one, something we’ve experienced personally. For those who have endured or are currently living through this type of situation, seeing it dramatized so realistically may be too much to handle. Yet it may also help people in this situation see that they are not alone and that they may find help to get them out of it. It may also help develop an understanding over why a person can witness such abuse going on in the household and yet be unable to separate themselves from it. The circumstances behind these situations is not simple; the solution is not always cut and dry and any resolutions will be unique to the person or persons. This film is not here to show the way out of it but to try and gain some understanding of it. In that way it is successful.
It goes without saying that Jennifer Jason Leigh turns in yet another amazing performance here. She manages to portray Anney as not only sympathetic but pitiable. Anney is a woman desperate for love yet thrust into loving a man she knows is the worst kind of man. Yet by the end of the movie, while we sympathize with her, we are not on her side. She is fundamentally weak and, even while catching Ron in the act of raping her daughter, she cannot resist him when he begs her to take him back. She will disappear with Ron, leaving Bone behind with her grandparents, only making one last appearance in her daughter’s life to give her a new birth certificate that removes the illegitimate stamp from it. “No woman should have to choose between her child and her lover,” the grandmother says to Bone but that sentiment rings hollow because, while she shouldn’t have to make that choice, life has forced that choice on her and she makes the wrong one. Bone will say to herself that she loves her mother even in the face of this betrayal and abandonment.
Glen Waddell is an interesting choice to play the malicious step-father; He has previously played a character who was the victim of molestation in the film Sleepers. Here his depiction of a man not in control of his impulses is scarily accurate. It is raw and unfiltered, brutal in what it shows. Glen was adamant that it needed this level of realism to really sink home just how despicable Ron is and he was right. There is no sympathy for his character. We get scenes between him and his father that help us understand his anger issues but nothing can get us to feel anything but disgust for him. An early scene where he molests Bone in a car is all we need to know about his character.
Jena Malone’s performance as Bone is absolutely devastating and not just in the scenes where she is being assaulted. Late in the film she makes the decision that she will never live under the same roof as Ron again. This decision has temporarily separated her mother and Ron, something that Ron lashes out at her about, and it’s tearing the young girl apart. Later she has to rectify herself with the decision her mom makes to choose Ron over her. She still loves her mom but says she understands the decision. But does she truly understand it?
It is difficult, but not impossible, to be angry watching a movie and still enjoy it on many levels. The subject matter is repugnant and Ron and Anney’s relationship is frustrating as it continues long past the point where Anney should have kicked him to the curb. The true horrors in it are that many of us have seen just that in the real world. People get assaulted all the time and keep coming back. It’s a sad reality of the real world, one that this film, and the novel before it, attempts to explain. In the end I still don’t quite understand why people allow it to go on but that is more a fault in myself than it is in the way it was told.
Release Date: December 15, 1996
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jena Malone, Ron Eldard, Glenne Headly, Dermot Mulroney, Grace Zabriskie, Michael Rooker and Christina Ricci.
Directed By: Angelica Huston
Comments
Post a Comment