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We all know what “Miranda rights” are, but what about Miranda’s Victim (now streaming on Hulu)? The film dramatizes the landmark legal case in the U.S. that resulted in the need for police to read the aforementioned warning – you have the right to remain silent, etc. – to arrestees, but from the perspective of Patricia Weir, the rape survivor who endured a pair of grueling court cases tied to the federal ruling. For decades, the real-life Weir’s identity was never made public, but she agreed to share her story for this film; she’s played by Abigail Breslin, who leads a cast of notables in an absorbing movie that succeeds in being both a survivor story and a complicated courtroom drama.
The Gist: It’s 1966. Trish (Breslin) catches a TV news report about the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Miranda rights, and the bottle she’s holding slips from her hands and smashes on the floor. It’s symbolic: She’d spent three years trying to put her life back together, and this announcement has shattered it once again. Now we jump back to 1963. Trish is 18. She works at a movie theater in Phoenix, Arizona, and has to take a late bus home after her shift. She confirms a date with her co-worker crush and exits the bus with a smile. Jump ahead an hour or two. Trish’s sister Ann (Emily VanCamp) is about to admonish her for getting home so late – until she sees her sibling in the foyer, traumatized, in tears, her clothing torn. Trish was abducted, tied up, driven out to the desert and sexually assaulted, then dropped back on the sidewalk in her neighborhood.
Trish’s mother, Zeola (Mireille Enos), urges her daughter to stay quiet, insisting that reporting the incident will only make things worse for her. It’s almost understandable; Zeola’s been rendered cynical by a world that shuns, if not outright ruins, female rape victims. But Ann takes Trish to the hospital for an examination, then to the police, because if they don’t pursue justice, what happens to the next woman this creep comes across? Of course, the doctor and the detective are both men, and seem a little callous in their handling of the situation; Det. Cooley’s (Enrique Murciano) first question is, “What were you wearing that night?” But Cooley is committed to the case, and eventually tracks down the perpetrator, Ernesto Miranda (Sebastian Quinn). Cooley and his partner haul Miranda in, question him and put him in a lineup. Trish identifies Miranda as her attacker, but not before she’s in the same room with the guy so she can hear his voice. The cops get Miranda to write out and sign a confession, and there seems to be little question that they got the right guy.
Miranda’s criminal court case moves along quickly. Lawrence Turoff (Luke Wilson) is Trish’s lawyer, and Alvin Moore (Andy Garcia) defends Miranda. Trish endures a brutal trial where she’s cross-examined and inevitably retraumatized, but the jury finds Miranda guilty, and he’s sent to prison for 20 to 30 years. To the world outside the courtroom, Trish remains an unnamed Jane Doe, maintaining her privacy. Cut to 11 months later: It’s Trish’s wedding day, and we learn that she’s kept the assault secret from her fiance. “Husbands can’t handle this,” is her justification, and she’s not necessarily wrong, especially when it comes to her particular husband, who’s callow and cold. The couple subsequent years find Trish giving birth to a daughter, and suffering recurrent nightmares about the incident. Is she OK? Will she ever be OK?
But Trish is about to suffer a setback, as American Civil Liberties Union lawyer John J. Flynn (Ryan Phillippe) reviews the case and determines that Miranda’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights may have been violated during his arrest and interrogation. So Flynn pushes the case to the U.S. Supreme Court as Turoff’s attempts to reason with him: Miranda is clearly guilty, Turoff asserts, suggesting Flynn look for another case to pursue. Flynn’s reply? “I don’t give a shit.”
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Miranda’s Victim isn’t quite up to par quality-wise with Loving, but both films tangle landmark-court-case arcs with sturdy character drama.
Performance Worth Watching: Breslin’s career has been quiet for a while, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t capable of a multifaceted, quietly powerful performance like this one.
Memorable Dialogue: It’s worth reiterating: “Husbands can’t handle this.”
Sex and Skin: A couple of upsetting, mildly graphic flashbacks to the rape scene.
Our Take: In a just world, Miranda’s Victim would be a sleeper hit, a little movie that could; critical accolades and marketing strategies seem to be outside its purview. That’s too bad, because it’s a thoroughly absorbing film that ably dramatizes thorny political-personal entanglements. Sure, it occasionally shows the seams of its modest budget, some of the performances could stand to be dialed down a bit (Phillippe and Murciano play too much to the back row) and it can be tonally dodgy, with heavy-handed soundtrack cues and the occasional overwrought dramatic flourish. But its intent is pure and its foundational performances – from Breslin, Wilson, Enos, Quinn, VanCamp – are rock-solid.
Notably, it plays like a passion project of sorts for director Michelle Danner, who ambitiously marries components of domestic and courtroom dramas, and makes sure the moral complications of the story don’t get boiled down to broad simplicities. The film adheres to the factual skeleton of cases, and it’s an absolute travesty that Weir had to endure the psychological brutality of a second trial. Breslin never shows absolute certainty with any of Trish’s decisions; her performance is deeply human as Trish very reluctantly sets aside her own well-being for a greater good.
The fact that Miranda was without-a-doubt guilty but also a victim of rights violations is the stuff of provocative drama – the depth of Trish’s humanity is equivalent to the depth of this situation’s ethical gray areas, and Danner wisely avoids demonizing anyone outside the sexist callousness of the Flynn character, a caricature of slimy defense lawyers who doesn’t seem enlightened to the suffering of rape victims. The movie reminds us that progress rarely occurs without significant pain. Of course, the subtext here is that rape and sexual assault cases have become only slightly less grueling in the decades since Miranda rights were adopted – the movie concludes with the depressing statistic that only five out of every 1,000 sexual assaults end in justice for the survivor. There’s ever and always more work to do.
Our Call: Miranda’s Victim is an engrossing watch, and a quietly vital one. Don’t overlook it. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
