Vengeance Is Mine

Wednesday, October 5 at 7:30 PM — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door

VENGEANCE IS MINE
Directed by Michael Roemer • 1984
Originally titled Haunted and released not in theaters but on television as part of the 1984 season of PBS’s American Playhouse series, this feature by director Michael Roemer (Nothing But a Man) has been little-seen since — until this year, when The Film Desk gave it its first-ever theatrical release and struck the new 35mm print that we will be screening. Though it was given Roemer’s preferred alternative title for the 2022 re-release, “haunted” is an apt description of the story’s dual leads, Jo (Brooke Adams) and Donna (Trish Van Devere), who meet by chance while Jo is visiting her sister in a sleepy Rhode Island town. Jo is haunted by her past: an adoptive mother who hated her, a teenage pregnancy given up for adoption, and an estranged abusive husband. Donna is haunted by untreated mental illness that leads her to emotionally abuse daughter Jackie (Ari Meyers) and husband Tom (Jon DeVries). Each woman’s impulse to intervene in the other’s life, to offer support and care, curdles into fear and resentment in the face of perverse personal demons. The film deftly develops its characters not through the heightened emotions of typical melodrama, but through subtle gestures and suggestions. In the film’s first ten minutes, Adams (Days of Heaven) has conveyed everything you need to know about Jo through three greetings and an eloquent series of halfhearted smiles and worried frowns. Donna’s discomfiting displays of terror and tenderness become visceral in the changing curve of Van Devere’s spine. Families, the ones we end up in both by choice and by happenstance become as thrilling and poignant as any high-concept action flick. (JR)
118 min • Post Mills Productions, Inc. • New 35mm print from The Film Desk