Descent
December 9th 2008 02:25
Maya (Dawson) is at a university campus studying psychology. She is shy, but curious, and one night at a party meets lanky-haired Jared (Chad Faust). He badgers her until she agrees to join him for a drink on the porch where they chat. He makes a pass, but Maya is wary. Jared seems relatively harmless, but a little desperate. As she leaves Jared on the porch she casually refers to the possibility of a date.
WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Jared invites Maya to dinner and they end up back at his campus dorm where they share wine and Jared probes Maya. Maya relaxes enough to allow Jared his chance to try and seduce her, but he forces himself upon her and Maya is immediately turned off. Jared gets aggressive, binds her arms, and rapes her while he mutters racial slurs. It’s over a few moments later, Adrian on his side, while Maya lays there in shock. Fade to black.
Rosario Dawson as Maya
Maya might be psychologically and emotionally damaged, but it doesn’t stop her from frequenting a hip-hop club where she loses herself in alcohol and the dark atmosphere. It is here she meets buffed-up Adrian (Marcus Patrick) a pan-sexual DJ and self-styled “guru” for lost souls, who befriends her and leads her further into a deep funk. She seems to garner some kind of inner strength through Adrian’s hedonistic, promiscuous and ambiguous realm.
Jared (Chad Faust) applies his schtick with Maya
The movie’s last twenty or so minutes has Maya orchestrate her drawn-out revenge agenda, which involves her chaining Jared spreadeagled on her bed, then “lecturing” him on romance and betrayal, then gagging him and sodomising him with a huge dildo, scrawling “baboon cunt” on his chest in bright red paint, and then, to add her beautiful insult to her grotesque injury, calls in the favours of Adrian who anally rapes him for another ten or so minutes of screen time while Maya sits on the edge of the bed, pulls off Jared’s blindfold so he can see what’s happening, then casually masturbates Jared (?!), and then while Adrian continues to rape Jared off-camera explaining that he’s not a faggot but he knows how much Jared likes it, Maya turns to stare blankly beyond the camera, her face oddly bewildered, tears running down her cheeks.
Maya is lured to Adrian (Marcus Patrick)
What the hell happened directly after the first rape?? Did she kiss Jared goodnight and see “See ya round?” How on earth could Jared be that gullible as to not think Maya might possibly have a hidden agenda when she invited him back to her place? What kind of person is Adrian to indulge Maya in that way? His motivation is dodgy at best. Maya’s characterisation becomes more and more blurred as the movie progresses (or regresses, depending on how you look at it).
Maya works her bittersweet revenge
Descent tries to be important, but its credibility is stretched from the moment Maya first turns her head at Jared as he blocks her way as if to say, “Hmmm, perhaps you’re not quite the lanky-haired idiot you seem.” Really, it’s only good for Rosario Dawson completists, or for those who like to have their feathers ruffled for no good reason. Perhaps the most pivotal scene in the whole movie is when at an after-party, and in front of everyone, a groupie of Adrian’s leans down to smoke a cigarette from between Adrian’s bare toes, while Maya looks on in what can only be repulsed wonder, and Adrian sneers “Good boy.”
Descent lays prone and soulless in the gutter blinking up at the stars; it’s a desperately pretentious movie wanting to say something about sex, identity and power that is graphic, subtle, raw and profound. It fails miserably.
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Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Hope I don't grab this off the shelf the next time I go reaching for The Descent!!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Natalie 2
My Life My Muse
Beta Girl Blog
That is exactly what this film did. Controversy and raw disturbing imagery with no real point end up reading as vacant, shallow, and self serving. That is what this film was to me. It was trying to claw its way into "Requiem for a Dream" status, and ended up being repulsive and sad.
As a side note, revenge is always served best for me in the form of "The Count of Monte Cristo."
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile