Taking What Could Have Been Maudlin to the Stratosphere

Rating: 10/10 (21 August 2016)

I hesitated seeing this film because I feared it would be another one of those exploitation films, with scene after scene of threat and pain. Considering a woman and her son have been kept for years in a room in a shed by a sociopath, this could have gone down that road, there are certainly elements of this. But this is about survival and hope, neither of which comes without agonizing risk. It's also about how people deal with things for which they have no true appreciation. I refer to two characters. The first is the father of the young woman. He must deal with what he sees as the devil's spawn. The second, a reporter that begins to malign her because she hasn't done what "she" sees as heroic. Her interview made me crawl, but I also thought this is exactly what we do to people who gain celebrity through pain. There is a great deal to be learned from this film, but I fear this is an eternal problem.