A promising debut with an incisive look at rape culture

It's hard to remember a breakthrough in cinema indie recent from such a personal perspective as that of Eva Victor, who in her excellent debut work manages to address a theme often explored in contemporary fiction created by women (fromA promising young woman to It could destroy you(appears absolutely renewed.) Victor is Agnes, a brilliant literature professor at a sleepy East Coast university who must grapple with the aftermath of a sexual assault she suffered while finishing her doctoral dissertation. The film's episodic and disordered structure underscores both the persistence of the trauma and the disruption it causes in the lives of survivors, but it is its tonal complexity, as well as its singular protagonist, that gives the film its unique personality.

Agnes is a young woman who likes books more than people—and who doesn't?—and Victor embodies her with the emotional austerity and laconic sense of humor that define a film that, in its form (sober wide shots, rigorous use of off-screen space), seems rigorous in its use of off-screen space. Despite this restraint, the filmmaker manages to mercilessly dissect the inadequate institutional response to cases of assault—the healthcare system, the justice system, and, very aptly, the university are all portrayed—while still providing her protagonist with a space for healing from the trauma, and opening a door to a future in our moving final scene.