Josephine: Channing Tatum plays a father in Sundance drama about a child witness

Beth de Araújo’s second feature, Josephine, is screening at the Sundance film festival. The film follows eight-year-old Josephine, played by newcomer Mason Reeves, and features Channing Tatum as her father Damien. The film opens with near-wordless scenes of Josephine and her father playing in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park before Josephine, having run ahead, witnesses the brutal rape of a female jogger by a man in a distinctive aqua polo.

Much to the audible shock of viewers at the Sundance premiere, the film shows the assault from Josephine’s vantage point rather than eliding it; cinematographer Greta Zozula captures both the crime and the child’s face in naturalistic light to convey Josephine’s bafflement and fear.

The aftermath focuses on inadequate adult responses: police put Josephine in the patrol car with the shattered victim (Syra McCarthy) and allow her to see the arrested man (Philip Ettinger); her mother, played by Gemma Chan, offers platitudes and briefly pursues psychotherapy that is dropped; her father takes her to self-defence classes but does not explain what she saw.

The review singles out Reeves’s natural performance and calls Tatum’s portrayal of a well-meaning but ill-equipped father especially strong. The critic notes the film’s strengths and limits, praising a bravura final courtroom scene while finding the film’s overstretched final third and some wordless score passages less effective.

Key Topics

Culture, Josephine, Sundance Film Festival, Channing Tatum, Mason Reeves, Beth De Araújo