A Child’s Voice
Once your eyes are opened to suffering, they cannot be closed again. That is the underlying message at the heart of Edgar Michael Bravo’s “A Child’s Voice,” the fifth film of his I’ve seen with his producing partner, John Paul Rice. In their previous films, we have seen a woman trying to take control of her life (“One Hour Fantasy Girl”); a young man struggling to reconcile with his past (“Mother’s Red Dress”); a supernaturally-imbued monster hunter (“Mark’s Secret to Eternal Life”); and a young, gay man dealing with mental illness and love (“A Young Man’s Future”). Bravo and Rice like shining a light on ideas and people the world often marginalizes and barely even pays lip service to, and that is what they are doing in “A Child’s Voice,” as well.
The film begins with Jacob (Jonathan Matthew Wilson), a young boy, walking down a darkened corridor before we see him abducted, and later killed, by two men in robes. His spirit leaves his body, and he makes a telepathic connection with Tim (Joey Burke), a junkie living on the streets. Tim is in a bad place, and hearing voices makes him feel, at first, like he’s going crazier, and he almost ignores it until he is shown an image of Kristy (Angela Mavropoulos), a young woman whose boyfriend, and their roommate, have come up with an unsettling way to make more money, and she tries to escape. When Tim and Kristy cross paths, it turns out to be a blessing for both, although as Jacob’s spirit leads them closer to the people who killed him, it gets even more dangerous.
The thing that makes Bravo’s films resonate with me so strongly is that he is able to tell stories that resonate on a personal level, regardless of the subject. Movies like “A Young Man’s Future” and “Mother’s Red Dress” are his strongest examples of this, but I always find myself drawn into his work, even if it isn’t as compelling as those films are. This film probably tackles his and Rice’s biggest subject yet- human trafficking- and while it’s very clear how passionately they feel about the subject, the larger subject matter feels like it dwarfs the personal story they are trying to tell. I’m intrigued by Tim and Kristy as characters, and the way that Bravo gets them into the larger story through supernatural means a la “Mark’s Secret to Eternal Life,” but shouldn’t this film be from Jacob’s perspective if this is going to have the intended impact as far as the subject matter? I can’t help but think about Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lovely Bones,” also about a child killed after being kidnapped and abused, and while that one was imperfect about its subject matter, as well, I think emotionally-speaking, it landed closer to the mark than this does.
Even if it doesn’t land its intended emotional punches, “A Child’s Voice” is worth viewing for the important conversation it can lead into when it comes to human trafficking, and the abuse of children, especially. There’s a haunting power and imagination in the way Bravo approaches this subject that sticks with me in the day it’s been since I’ve watched the film. A lot of that comes from the way Jacob reaches out, which is subtle but compelling, while the rest of it is in the images of the other people in the film that drive the story. Tim and Kristy are protagonists worth following, and Rudolph (Joseph Lopez) and Daniel (Jalen Vasquez) are striking to watch as two parts of a larger machine responsible for children like Jacob being stripped of their innocence, and lives. This film tells just a part of the larger issue Bravo and Rice want to introduce us to; based on that, they do make us feel the impact of Jacob’s voice, how it was silenced in life, and how it helps shine light on what lead to his death afterwards.
