Director: Beth de Araújo
Cast: Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Mason Reeves, Philip Ettinger, Syra McCarthy
Screenplay: Beth de Araújo
121 mins. Rated R for rape, graphic nudity, some language and sexual content.

Writer/director Beth de Araújo (Soft & Quiet) has crafted one of the most difficult films of the year with Josephine, an examination of the traumas that are forced upon young people and how they often cannot comprehend a response. It’s one of the best films to come from this years TCFF, but it’s also certainly one of the most testing experiences for audiences.

When eight-year-old Josephine (Mason Reeves) and her father Damien (Channing Tatum, Deadpool & Wolverine) are completing a morning training session at Golden Gate Park, she is accidentally separated from his and comes across a man committing a harrowing and horrifying sexual assault upon a female victim. After the incident, Josephine cannot comprehend or understand what happened, and her parents only really know that they don’t know what to do next or how to deal with these feelings and anxieties. As Josephine begins lashing out, her family threatens to tear itself apart at the seams.

This was indeed a difficult experience, and I can imagine even more so for viewers who have had an experience like the one young Josephine witnessed, and while it’s rare for me to warn viewers, I have to say that if you don’t feel comfortable with this type of film in theaters, try it at home instead. There were several members of my audience that disappeared from my showing and never came back. While I wholeheartedly recommend the film, I will recognize that it’s absolutely not going to be for everyone.

Mason Reeves is absolutely incredible as Josephine, operating one of the most layered and unforgiving child performances I’ve ever seen. She’s propped up being surrounded by a very talented cast, but the movie rests on her shoulders, and she gives a complex vocal and physical performance that carries the entire movie. I don’t know how much of the film’s content she was aware of as she and the director worked their way through the material, but she is able to convey such incredible amounts of uncertainty and an incapacity in coming to terms and understanding what she’s seen and how it has fundamentally changed her.

Reeves is surrounded by strong supporting players in Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians), who play father Damien and mother Claire. Tatum in particular has the difficult role of playing a man who is struggling with his own anxieties and lashing out in anger because that’s all he really knows. His immediate response when coming across his child witnessing this violent attack is anger and activation, his own anxiety and guilt coming to the forefront. He continues to find himself in difficult situations and he comes to understand that he may never get his child’s trust back. Both he and Claire are at odds as to an approach in dealing with it. He wants to put the feelings away and she wants to get therapy involvement and try to understand them, and they consistently sabotage each other and themselves without ever meaning to. They have conflicting messages and speak to their daughter in ways that are not easily interpreted. Chan plays Claire with an intensity and guarded approach due to the character’s own concerning past traumas, and she doesn’t divvy out much information from that past, but it’s always there, lingering.

The inclusion of Greg (Philip Ettinger, First Reformed), the perpetrator of the crime, as a spectral force is rather inspired and haunting as director Beth de Araújo chooses to place the criminal in Josephine’s periphery, often sitting in the corner of her bedroom as she tries to sleep, a lingering phantom of the events that have now shaped and changed her forever. In many ways, it turns these moments into tiny horror films, and they have that effect of a ghostly presence jump-scaring itself into reality. Small, effective choices like this make Josephine an altogether more compelling experience than expected.

Josephine is an incredibly difficult film to watch, as should be expected. What I didn’t expect was the incredible child performance at its center, bolstered by terrific and complex supporting work from Tatum and Chan. Director Beth de Araújo has crafted a respectful but never unflinching character study that is painful and traumatic, and I was particularly taken by her usage of anxiety and activation in her study of this family falling apart and how little mistakes, verbiage, and intentions can have wide-ranging effects. If you are up to it, see Josephine.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe