The Tale
A few years ago, I remembered a moment of abuse that I had long forgotten. It’s actually kind of surreal to think that I had completely blocked it out of my memory, but that’s how trauma can be- our brain shoves it into the back of our mind so that we can go on living. Sometimes, however, that defense mechanism can be detrimental to our long-term health, and, after I remembered it, I wondered whether some choices I would make as an adult would have changed, and things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. That they did, I cannot go back and change. All I can do is learn from it, and grow from there.
Jennifer Fox is taking us on a similar emotional journey in her piercing, painful film, “The Tale.” When she was 13, she was groomed and raped by a much-older man, her running coach. She wrote a story for English, at the time, that framed it as a beautiful story of self-discovery and self-worth. Thirty-five years later, her mother found the story she wrote, and has called her, frantic and crushed at what she read. But Jenny, now a documentary filmmaker, doesn’t see the story that way, because she never saw it that way. Her memory of that moment is kept in the frame of mind a 13-year-old girl saw it when she wrote about it. Now that her mother has called her memories into question, though, Jenny begins a journey to remember clearly what happened, and whether her memory has betrayed her or not.
Fox’s “The Tale” comes out at a moment when women (and men) are finding the courage to speak up about sexual assault and abuse that they sustained at the hands of powerful men. Reading their stories on social media and in media outlets has been a necessary moment of reckoning for a world- and especially, the entertainment industry- that has allowed nothing to happen for so long, and swept abuse under the rug with no repercussions. Fox’s story feels unique as we watch it unfold, but I cannot imagine it being much different from many others. The older man, Bill (played with predatory charm by Jason Ritter), is her running coach she finds herself training with when she is also learning to horse ride with Mrs. G (Elizabeth Debicki), her horse instructor. Together, Bill and Mrs. G are the ones who encourage Jenny to be more mature, to be lead into womanhood quicker than she has any right to, and watching that grooming unfold is unsettling as Bill especially lifts her up while making it seem to Jenny that he genuinely cares for her. This is all seen in flashback, as the narrative basically follows Fox’s story as being reread by the adult Jennifer, played by Laura Dern in a performance that will pretty much mesmerize and emotionally destroy you, as she tries to piece together the reality of the situation.
Fox’s film draws you in to the psychological tension arising in Jenny as she tries to understand the truth of her life, and reconcile the story she told herself vs. the truth everyone who reads the story understands. “The Tale” builds to a single climax, done two different ways, wherein Jennifer stays true to herself, and does the bravest thing anyone in her position can do, and that is what is best for her. Both moments feel like triumphs, even if they’re bound to leave marks in terms of what happens after. This is a courageous work of finding the confidence to admit that not only have you been abused and emotionally scarred by someone, but that you were wrong in how you saw the acts of other people. It may not be playing in theatres (HBO picked it up after its Sundance debut), but honestly, all the better to try and get it in front of as many sets of eyes as possible, whether they be people who may not have Fox’s courage (yet) to tell their story, or people who have a hard time seeing such stories outside of how they understand the world.
