MOVIE TITLE: Redemption
RELEASE DATE: 2007
DIRECTOR: Michael Bryson
GENRE: Short Film (22 minutes)
SUBGENRE: Psychological Drama
RATING: Unrated, but contains emotional and physical child
abuse
GRADE: A
Because the run time is only 22 minutes, it’s impossible to
discuss the plot points without crossing into spoiler territory, so if you don’t
want spoilers, leave now and read something else.
And because this is a short film made by a low-budget indie
company, it really does show when they film within their means. The camera
work, the editing, the sound quality, yes, it all screams low-budget indie
film. Don’t let that factor into your enjoyment when watching this movie.
Enjoyment might not be the right word because of how triggering some of the
content is, but if you’ve been spoiled by Hollywood movie effects, it’ll be
jarring to see something of this quality. The acting, the storyline, and the
psychology behind this film more than make up for it.
Every actor who played a part in Redemption did their job
and did it convincingly. When the mother beats the little girl after a bedwetting
accident, you feel the daughter’s pain through her visceral screams and heart-wrenching
cries. You feel it all over again when the mother forces her daughter to go
outside in public with a diaper on so that everyone can scrutinize her shame.
The daughter’s body language, her pouting, her head tucked in her lap, you know
she’s going through abuse even without seeing the violence yourself, though including
the violence on screen was necessary to drive the point home. You understand
that the mother mourns the death of her husband. She’s lost without him, but
instead of being there for her daughter, who also lost a father, the mother beats
and humiliates her with forced infantilization. Yes, the daughter accidentally
distracted her dad and caused him to crash the car and die, but she was a kid
being playful, not malicious. The guilt of causing her father’s death
compounded with the vengeful abuse from her mother create a cocktail of trauma
for her to grow up with. The traumatic events are different for all of us in
this life, but nobody makes it out unscathed. The daughter is relatable on some
level. That’s why we don’t shame her when she finds a pistol in her mother’s nightstand
drawer and shoots her.
I have one nitpick about the plot going forward from this
point, but it’s not enough to lower my grade. After shooting her abusive
mother, the daughter grows up and gets married without any mention of her
serving jail time for what she did. Yes, she was in the right, but this movie
was filmed in Texas, so I’m assuming the story takes place there, too. The
right-wing Texas government doesn’t give a damn about women and girls and will
go to any lengths to subjugate them. If the daughter did serve time in jail, it
was awfully short and a surprisingly gentle experience that didn’t make her
worse. But at the end of the day, there’s a story to tell and it has nothing to
do with the Texas prison system. The movie is called Redemption and by God,
that’s what we’re going to get.
Another nitpick, but it’s one some other audience members
might have: the narrator’s voice. Obviously, the story is narrated by the abused
girl who grows up into a psychotically traumatized adult. Her voice is nasally,
whiny, and subdued. Some audience members might be put off by her voice, but
not me. That’s the voice of someone who’s been forced to endure infantilization
against her will. That’s the voice of a child who never had the chance to grow
up and experience life. And yes, when you experience a significant amount of
childhood trauma, it changes your voice. There’s actual science behind that. I’m
glad the director chose to tell the story that way, because it makes perfect
sense.
And then there’s a nitpick that certain members of the
diaper community have voiced on the internet that I can’t take seriously: “Uh,
why didn’t she just marry a guy with a diaper fetish?” Because that’s not the
point of the story! She’s not wearing diapers as an adult to entice her
husband. She’s wearing them because they feel familiar, even if that place of
familiarity was dark and terrifying. A familiar trauma will always gain favor
over the scariness of the unknown. We like familiarity, because it cuts down on
anxiety, ironically enough. You could argue that it’s not a man’s job to fix
broken women in the same way that it’s not a woman’s job to fix broken men. But
her husband loves her for who she is. He married her for a reason. He didn’t
get in the relationship specifically to fix her. But when he sees her wearing a
diaper and laying on a bed full of crime scene photos, he doesn’t want to judge
or laugh. He wants to heal her. He wants to be supportive and help her move on.
The movie ends when he tears up a crime scene photo and
embraces her, allowing her to shed tears on his strong shoulders. The fact that
she was able to maintain a relationship for as long as she did is nothing short
of a miracle. That alone is a strong thing for a traumatized woman to do. Now
it’s her turn to be taken care of, by someone who actually loves her and won’t
punish her for simple mistakes no matter how deadly they turn out to be. The little
girl started off in a happy family, then tragedy struck, then she survived
abuse, and now she found love again. It’s a psychologically sound story to
tell.
I wish that all survivors of abuse find their way back to
love, in whatever form that may take. It doesn’t have to be through marriage.
It could be platonic love. It could be found family rather than blood family.
It could be through taking care of a furry friend like a dog or a cat. We do
have to break the cycle eventually, but we don’t have to do it alone nor should
we. It takes a village to raise a traumatized child. It takes love in all of
its forms to get us back on the right path. The daughter could have continued down
a violent path. But she didn’t. She broke the cycle. I love stories about
breaking the cycle. They’re relatable, they’re hard-hitting, and they remind us
over and over again that we’re not alone in this world. Even if you come from a
loving family, you can suffer abuse from other people outside of your home.
Your parents are not your only influence in life. Whoever influences you the
most, for better or worse, may you one day find your redemption and healing.
This movie gets an A grade for the acting and story alone. If you want special
effects, go to a WWE show, if you can afford it. You might have to dig into
your college trust fund to pay for tickets, or sell one of your kidneys.
Redemption, on the other hand, is easy to find online if you look hard enough
for it. Am I talking about the movie or actual redemption? Yes, I am.
