The Accused (1988 film)

On April 18, 1987, 24-year- old waitress Sarah Tobias is brutally gang-raped by three men at a local bar while several patrons watch and cheer. District Attorney Katheryn Murphy is assigned to the case. Although there is strong physical evidence corroborating Sarah's rape, Katheryn feels that Sarah will not make a credible witness if the case goes to trial due to her checkered past and flirtatious behavior with the men before her attack. She agrees to a plea bargain, allowing the three rapists to plead guilty to the lesser offense of reckless endangerment, a felony without a sexual offense, and serve nine months in prison. Sarah is angered and feels betrayed by Katheryn's decision, as she wants the chance to tell her story.

Several months later, Sarah is harassed in a parking lot by one of the men who watched and encouraged her rape. In response, she drives her car into his truck, resulting in her hospitalization. Katheryn feels guilty for not giving Sarah the choice to take her case to trial and offering her rapists a plea deal. She decides to prosecute the men who clapped and cheered during Sarah's assault for criminal solicitation. If convicted, the rape will go on record, nullifying the plea deal, and her rapists will serve 5 years in prison.

As the case goes to trial, Sarah is finally able to testify about what happened the night of her attack. Meanwhile, Katheryn pores over evidence and comes across a tape of a 911 call in which a young man reports Sarah's rape. She discovers the caller is Kenneth Joyce, a college student who was present that night at the bar. Reluctant at first, he agrees to testify for the prosecution, recounting how the accused men cheered and goaded the rapists on as they brutalized Sarah. The three men are found guilty of criminal solicitation, and as a result, the rapists will serve additional time in prison. Sarah leaves the courtroom triumphant with Katheryn.

The film closes with a title stating, "In the United States a rape is reported every six minutes. One out of every four rape victims is attacked by two or more assailants".

It is loosely based on the 1983 gang rape of Cheryl Araujo in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the resulting trial which received national coverage (and was also the focus of an episode on the 2020 Netflix documentary series Trial by Media).^[4][5] The film explores the themes of classism, misogyny, post-traumatic stress disorder, slut shaming, victim blaming and women's empowerment.

Screenwriter Tom Topor was inspired to write the film after the trial involving the rape of Cheryl Araujo became national news.^[6] Dawn Steel called him to ask if he'd be interested in doing a movie on the subject. Sherry Lansing and Stanley Jaffe from Paramount Pictures were subsequently signed on to produce the film. Topor interviewed 30 rape victims and numerous rapists, prosecutors, defense attorneys and medical professionals.^[6] Jonathan Kaplan met with Steel and discussed the possibility of making a film on the subject. The original draft of the script mainly focused on the lawyer's story. However, Kaplan wanted the rape victim to be as prominent as the lawyer; the script also featured a pool table (reflecting the real life incident), but the producers were concerned with being sued, so it was changed to a pinball machine.

Following the test screenings, the film received the lowest scores in the history of Paramount. According to Lansing, "The audience thought that Jodie's character deserved the rape."^[6] Studio executives wanted to put the film on the shelf and were looking for ways to prevent it from being released. Lansing asked for another screening with just women, which was far more successful. Of the 20 women in the room, 18 had experience with rape — either they or someone they knew had been raped. When tested again months later, it was given one of the highest scores in the studio's history.^[6]

Due to its hard-edged themes and graphic screenplay, the studio was already skeptical about making the film, and it was essential for the producers to cast a bankable actress in the role of Sarah Tobias. Numerous actresses were offered or considered for the part including Kim Basinger, Demi Moore, Jennifer Beals, Meg Tilly, and Rosanna Arquette, but all of them rejected the film due to its controversial themes.^[7] Producers Sherry Lansing and Stanley R. Jaffe both had serious reservations for casting Foster since they thought she couldn't be sexual enough for the role of Sarah. Also, Foster who had recently graduated from Yale and didn't make any successful films during her time at school, wasn't the prime choice for the producers. Following numerous auditions as well as rejection from various established actresses, she was finally cast in the part.

Jane Fonda was initially attached to play attorney Katheryn Murphy but left the project as she found the script exploitative and poorly written.^[8] Ellen Barkin, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Debra Winger, Meryl Streep and Geena Davis were also considered for the part. Kelly McGillis, who had just experienced commercial success with the action film Top Gun (1986), was cast for the bankable prospects of the film.^[6] McGillis was initially offered to play Sarah but declined, citing her personal experience.^[9] She acknowledged at the time of the film's release that she herself had survived a violent attack and rape in 1982 when two men broke into her apartment. Based on her experience, she took on the role of Murphy.

After a long career as a child star, including a breakout performance in Taxi Driver, at age 18, Foster had taken a sabbatical from Hollywood to attend Yale, and had experienced a bit of a dry spell upon her return to acting, with several films receiving a lukewarm response with critics and at the box office. She stated that she had thought about retiring from acting had The Accused followed suit.

Principal photography for The Accused began on April 22, 1987, and wrapped two months later, on June 2. Although set in Washington state, the film was shot primarily in Vancouver, British Columbia. The gang rape scene was highly controversial at the time of the film's release. It took five days to complete, and filming was a difficult experience for the cast and crew. Everyone felt protective of Jodie Foster and was concerned about how traumatic the scene could be for her. In an interview, Foster explained that the rape scene was meticulously rehearsed beforehand to ensure there would be no unpleasant surprises during filming. She has stated that she does not remember shooting the scene and completely blacked out, even breaking blood vessels in her right eye from crying during the process. The male actors were deeply upset.^[10][11] Leo Rossi, who played Cliff "Scorpion" Albrect, a bystander, recalled that Woody Brown, who played Danny, one of the rapists, bolted from the set and vomited in his trailer after the scene.^[6] Complex ranked the rape scene #16 on its list of "The 53 Most Hard-To-Watch Scenes in Movie History."^[12]

The Accused was released in limited theatres in North America on October 14, 1988. Although it was supposed to be released in April, it was deferred to October due to the Writers Guild of America's strike. The film premiered at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival in 1989, where it competed for the Golden Bear.^[13]

In its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, The Accused was number one at the box office, grossing $4.3 million in 796 theaters. Domestically, the film grossed $32.1 million.^[14]

The Accused received positive reviews from critics upon its release, with Foster's performance receiving widespread acclaim. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 93% based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10.^[15] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 65 out of 100 indicating "generally favourable reviews".^[16]

In a positive review, writing of the two criminal prosecutions in the film, Roger Ebert finds that the lesson of the trial "may be the most important message this movie has to offer...that verbal sexual harassment, whether crudely in a saloon back room or subtly in an everyday situation, is a form of violence - one that leaves no visible marks but can make its victims feel unable to move freely and casually in society. It is a form of imprisonment."^[17] Rob Beattie from Empire, gave the film five out of five stars, calling it phenomenal and called the controversial rape scene "devastating, harrowing and utterly convincing".^[18] Judy Steed of The Globe and Mail called it "An experience that is sometimes unbearable and always riveting". Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "A consistently engrossing melodrama, modest in its aims and as effective for the clichés it avoids as for the clear eye through which it sees its working-class American lives".^[19]

Marjorie Heins, in the 1998 book The V-Chip Debate: Content Filtering from Television to the Internet, said that educators worried that the film would "receive V ratings and be subject to at least a presumption against curricular use in many public schools."^[20]

At the 61st Academy Awards, Foster won Best Actress. This was the film's sole nomination, thus marking the first occurrence of such an event since 1962 (when Sophia Loren won for Two Women) that the winner of the category won for a film with a single nomination. In 2006, Foster's performance was ranked #56 on Premiere's 100 Greatest Film Performances of all-time.^[21]

• Aquino, John T. (2005). "Big Dan's Tavern Rape Trial (1983) / Film: The Accused (1988)," in Truth and Lives on Film: The Legal Problems of Depicting Real Persons and Events in a Fictional Medium. McFarland. pp. 140–143. ISBN 0786420448.

• The Accused at IMDb
• ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› The Accused at AllMovie
• The Accused at Box Office Mojo
• The Accused at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Accused at the TCM Movie Database