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DESCENT
Directed by: Talia Lugacy.
Produced by: Rosario Dawson, Morris S. Levy, Lugacy & Priest.
Written by: Brian Priest & Lugacy.
Director of Photography: Christopher LaVasseur & Jonathan Furmanski.
Edited by: Frank Reynolds.
Released by: City Lights Pictures.
Country of Origin: USA. 100 min. Rated NC-17.
With: Rosario Dawson, Chad Faust & Marcus Patrick.

Descent, the feature film debut of director and co-writer Talia Lugacy, stars Rosario Dawson as Maya, a smart, shy college student getting over a breakup. She meets Jared (Chad Faust), a stereotypical jock, at a frat party and falls for his flattery. On their first date, he takes her to a nice dinner, she lets her guard down, and against her better judgment starts falling for him. Minutes later he is going too far, too fast, and he pins her down, raping her in a scene long and painful to watch. From here on, the film goes off track, as does Maya, losing any sense of credibility.

The rape devastates her and she retreats inward, making herself invisible to the world. She spends a lot of time in a club, drinking and acting provocatively, which is completely opposite from her personality before the attack, though characteristically mimicking post-rape trauma.

The scenes in the club are dreadful; you never get a sense of why she is there and what is going on. The frustration is compounded by the barely audible dialogue and the darkness – it almost seems as if there wasn’t enough money for lights. At the club, she meets Adrian (Marcus Patrick), the sexually provocative club DJ who becomes her protector and helpmate in her revenge against Jared.

When Jared turns up in a class where she’s the teaching assistant, she makes her move. The revenge perpetrated on Jared is horrific, gratuitous, and basically unwatchable, leaving nothing to the imagination. It might have been the director's intention to depict Jared's punishment brutally, but instead, it makes the viewer sympathize with Jared, which I bet was not the intention. Revenge here is not at all sweet, but sad, pathetic, and vindictive.

Melissa Silverstein, a writer on women & popular culture and online editor for The Women's Media Center
August 10, 2007