The beaten man
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The beaten man |
| Original title | Men don't tell |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1993 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Harry Winer |
| script |
Selma Thompson Jeff Andrus |
| production | Philip L. Parslow |
| music | Cameron Allan |
| camera | Kees Van Oostrum |
| cut | David A. Simmons |
| occupation | |
| |
Men do not tell is an American television - drama from the year 1993 .
action
They both had a happy wedding, so it seems all the stranger that Ed and Laura MacAffrey, who were once so in love, fell out so much that Ed is said to have beaten his wife into a coma. After Laura is taken away in the ambulance, the police appear and suspect him of trying to kill his wife and take him to the station. There he says that everything is very different from what it looks like. Laura hit him and not the other way around.
He talks about his fortieth birthday and how his wife surprised him with a party. She has everything planned to give a perfect party. She resolves minor discrepancies by exerting gentle pressure on her husband. He has to buy soda again as it is running out. He takes his daughter Cindy with him to go shopping, who later has to watch her father put a thief to flight after he was almost ambushed. When she later tells her mother about it, she is so upset that she hits Ed with her fist in the face with full force. He's bleeding and apologizes for not telling her earlier. When his friends see him with a cracked lip, he says that his wife hit him. But since everyone is laughing, he lies and says that he fell over toys lying around.
That was the story Laura hit him the first time. The police don't really want to believe him. But Ed says he's telling the truth. All these years he had just kept quiet so as not to be exposed to the sayings of his friends and colleagues. When asked whether Laura always hit him on purpose, Ed justifies Laura's behavior by saying that it was all accidents in which he was always the culprit.
When Alan received his application to a renowned private school, Laura tried everything to make it a success. But Alan is clumsy, which is why the recording threatens to fail. This frustrates her so much that she blames Ed for not making enough money and never being home because of his overtime. When he also forgets the evening at the cinema with the children, Laura tries the next day in the presence of the children to start an argument with Ed. When he tries to avoid a debate with her, she yells at her husband and throws several objects on the floor. Ed tries to justify their mother's behavior to his two children. But Laura is still angry that she beats her sleeping husband at night, beats him out of bed and kicks him. Ed gains the upper hand, not to hit her, but to force her to stop hitting. She stops, but Ed turns away from Laura more and more. She tries to overcome this distance herself, but when she sees him at the company Christmas party with another woman, she freaks out, runs in the parking lot, jams Ed, who has followed her, his hand in the car door so that it breaks and races several times with her car against Ed's truck. He hides the cause of the injury, as well as his wife's aggression. He turns to Chuck, his friend and lawyer, for advice on what would happen if he got divorced. But the latter urgently advises against it, as the follow-up processes for custody and maintenance would ruin him. He should rather try to save the marriage. So he tries to save what can be saved with expensive roses and a joint dinner. But Laura lets him sit and does not appear.
To escape the violence, he moves out of the common house. A short time later, however, Laura appears and asks him to appear at least for Christmas and to spend the festival with them for the sake of the children. He can hardly bring himself to do it and appears the evening before Christmas. Laura promises that she will change and that everything will be better now. The next time will be better too, but one day Laura discovers the receipt for the expensive roses Ed bought her for dinner and believes that he is having fun with other women. Since she throws all kinds of objects at him, screaming, he can't tell her the truth. Alarmed by the noise, the neighbors call the police. When this appears, Laura trips and injures herself, so that it looks to the police as if the man is beating his wife, which is why she threatens him. The next day he received the same threat from his father Jack. But that's enough for Ed. He himself always hated it when his father came home drunk to beat his wife, which is why he doesn't want to be told anything.
During the interrogation break, Jack visits his son and doesn't believe the story that Laura beat him for years. Therefore, he suggests that he lie and confess the act by coming home drunk and beating his wife. But Ed doesn't want to lie, let alone accept a minor penalty for something he didn't do.
Ed once sought help at the women's shelter to advise him on what options he would have in a violent marriage. But they thought he was a weirdo, which is why they refused to help. So shortly afterwards he asked his wife to see a marriage counselor. But the drunk Laura reacts very negatively. She is afraid of being blamed for everything, which is why she blames him in turn and insults him. When Cindy overhears an argument provoked by Laura and asks her mother to stop, Laura yells at her daughter and hits her. That's enough for Ed, who pulls Laura away from Cindy. A tussle ensues in which both fall through the window and, as a result, Laura into a coma.
Since nobody believes him, Ed is on the verge of ending up in jail. But suddenly his father appears and apologizes to him. Ed is at a loss, but Jack tells him that Cindy confirms his whole story and is now giving her testimony outside to the police. Ed is released and can finally be with his children again. He also becomes the best man at Chuck's wedding, where he wishes him and his bride the best and a marriage based on love and trust, which means a lot of work. Laura, meanwhile awakened from the coma, also appears at the party and hopes that she will be able to see her children again. Ed promises her as long as she knows how to behave. Laura then lets herself be carried away to the aggressive statement that she would do anything to get custody of her children and that there was nothing he could do about it. But Ed only replies that he can still tell the truth.
criticism
On Variety , Rick Martin said that this "paradoxically mind-blowing CBS movie" is not a true story. Nevertheless, he shows how "violence escalates in the usual way, only in the wrong way."
Because it is a "provocative subject" when a woman hits a man, Ray Loynd of the Los Angeles Times found this "study of a masculine hearty man who doesn't hit women" brave. He also praised the fact that, thanks to the “tight, tense narrative”, it was not just a melodrama. He particularly emphasized Judith Light, who shows a “shocking portrait” with her figure of a “vicious, insecure woman”. Although the “solid script” presented a “comparatively new” marriage story, the film also had “a sobering point.” By that he meant the “jokes” that one would have got used to, where “a woman with a rolling pin her husband goes off, only to then experience how extremely uncomfortable and terrifying something like that can look. "
In People magazine, David Hiltbrand wrote that "the violence is staggering but the psychological profiles remain disappointingly superficial."
"The interesting thing about the film is the cast," said Rick Kogan in the Chicago Tribune , because Strauss "doesn't look like someone who could be beaten" and Light has always been cast in more female roles. While Strauss plays his character “diligently”, Light “fails” in its portrayal. He also criticized the "simple cause-and-effect action that denies a deeper examination of the emotional-psychological suffering."
“The movie sounds like a bad joke at first,” said Lon Grahnke in the Chicago Sun-Times , but “there's nothing funny in this drama [...] that tries to explain the psychological compulsions why women hit their men. “In this“ honest attempt ”Grahnke praised the main actors. Peter Strauss draws a “fine line between masculinity and vulnerability” and “his brief, simple portrayal [is] full of strength, sensitivity [and] sympathy.” But also the “more striking role of the insecure, compulsive Laura,” as the “frustrated housewife of her insulting, hypercritical mother is tormented, ”is portrayed by Light“ with terrifying conviction ”.
Tom Shales said in the Washington Post that Strauss was doing a “very convincing job” and that Light was also “giving her character an additional level above normal stubbornness”. Although the topic is “rousing hard”, “the film sinks” again and again between the flashbacks and thus loses its speed.
background
Light initially didn't want to do the film because she was afraid it would reduce the problem of female abuse in marriages. But after the film's psychologist and advisor, John Chamberlin, pointed out the problem, she said that "it feels good to pioneer and show the public that there are other kinds of abuse too."
Judith Light immediately accepted. However, Peter Strauss was only the second choice. The actor originally contacted was so mad at the script that his name has not been revealed to this day.
Strauss was at the Golden Globe Awards 1994 as Best Actor - Miniseries or TV movie nominated.
The film, produced by CBS , first aired on March 14, 1993. In Germany it ran for the first time on June 14, 1994 on ProSieben .
Web links
- Men do not tell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The beaten man in the lexicon of international films
- The Beaten Man in the online movie database
- Men do not tell at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rick Marin: Men Don'T Tell on variety.com, March 12, 1993 (English), accessed April 3, 2012
- ↑ Ray Loynd: TV REVIEWS: 'Men Don't Tell' Focuses on Plight of Battered Husbands on latimes.com, March 13, 1993, accessed April 30, 2012
- ↑ David Hiltbrand: Picks and Pans Review: Men Don't Tell on people.com from March 15, 1993 (English), accessed April 30, 2012
- ↑ Rick Kogan: Problems, Problems on chicagotribune.com of March 12, 1993 (English), accessed April 30, 2012
- ↑ Lon Grahnke: A Battered Husband // Truth Hurts in `Men Don't Tell ' ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Chicago Sun-Times , March 12, 1993 (via highbeam.com)
- ↑ Tom Shales: TV Preview; Bewitched, Battered & Bewildered; `Men Don't Tell ': A Case of Abuse ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Washington Post , March 13, 1993 (via highbeam.com)
- ↑ Thomas D. Elias: Judith Light Dramatizes Husband Abuse on chicagotribune.com from March 13, 1993 (English), accessed on March 30, 2012
- ↑ Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence , Praeger Trade 1997, p. 138.
