| Descent | |
| Director: | Talia Lugacy |
| Producer: | Rosario Dawson Morris S. Levy Talia Lugacy |
| Starring: | Rosario Dawson Chad Faust Marcus Patrick |
| Music: | Alex Moulton |
| Cinematography: | Christopher LaVasseur |
| Editing: | Frank Reynolds |
| Distributor: | City Lights Pictures |
| Runtime: | 105 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $15,233[1] |
Descent is a 2007 American thriller film directed by Talia Lugacy and produced by and starring Rosario Dawson. It is best described as a 'rape revenge' film, as Maya is " brutally raped and struggles alone to rebuild her life" and eventually seeks revenge against Jared, the man who raped her.[2] [3]
Maya is an upcoming artist and college student. In the winter of her senior year, Maya attends a fraternity party and meets a student named Jared who immediately starts courting her using all his eloquence behind which there is nothing but lies. Seduced by his lies, she accepts his invitation to dinner at a restaurant, then goes to his apartment, just to talk. They start to make out, but when Maya tells him to stop, Jared soon reveals his true self and brutally rapes her while uttering dehumanizing slurs in her ear.
Over the next year, Maya's personality changes. She becomes quiet and withdrawn, graduating from college and taking a job at a clothing store. She disconnects herself from society and other familiar surroundings while struggling to break free of the resulting depression and addiction. At night, she's someone else: a beauty at the nightclub scene, dancing, seductive, sniffing cocaine. Maya later meets and seeks out the help of a DJ she meets at a club, named Adrian, whom she confides in.
Maya becomes Teachers Aide to a class Jared is in. One day, she catches him cheating on an exam and threatens to report it, but instead uses it as an opportunity to lure Jared to her apartment. Jared willingly complies. She manages to get her revenge against Jared by handcuffing him to her bed and blindfolding him. She starts talking to him and the topic turns dark, which Jared seems to notice. She then brings up the assault and begins to cry. Jared tries to reassure her but this only angers her, so she gags him. She then anally rapes him with an object for a couple of minutes and says many of the same things that Jared said to her as he screams and writhes around. This causes Jared to become physically aroused and ejaculate.
After this, Maya then allows Adrian to rape Jared for several minutes. He taunts Jared psychologically for becoming once again physically aroused by the assault and "making a mess" over himself, but this is only a natural response by his body to the whole ordeal. Adrian echoes the slurs Jared said to Maya. As Jared gives up struggling against Adrian's assault and goes slack, Adrian then asks Maya if "everything's alright now." She turns to him and it seems like she is silently crying, possibly indicating that this hasn't truly helped her to heal at all. The movie then ends as the screen fades black.
Descent was released in two alternate cuts: a 105-minute uncut NC-17 rated version and a 95-minute R-rated version. The notable difference between the two is that the edited release omits about seven minutes of the second rape scene.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 35% based on reviews from 34 critics, with an average rating of 4.88/10. The website's consensus states: "Descent has the potential to make a statement about sexual violence, but falls flat by focusing on revenge rather than Rosario Dawson's emotional state."[4] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 45 out of 100 based on reviews from 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[5] Matt Zoller Seitz of The New York Times wrote: "Hard to watch but essential to see, Descent is at once realistic and rhetorical, and driven throughout by righteous anger that comes from an honest place."[6] [7]