The gulf between the safe and loving world that we want to make for children and the world that we live in is vaster than a galaxy. But in “Josephine,” Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan are parents forced to navigate that void when, on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday morning, their daughter Josephine (newcomer Mason Reeves) witnesses an assault in the San Francisco park where they like to jog.
The inciting incident is loosely based on something that actually happened to writer and director Beth de Araújo when she was young. But the place that she, and the film, take the fallout from this event is unique to the filmmaker’s uncanny ability to explore how power and evil move so freely in our world, both when people have terrible intentions and when their intentions are good.
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As IndieWire’s Kate Erbland wrote in her review, “Araújo remains undefeated when it comes to making stunning films that I will both heartily recommend and never, ever watch again. The word that comes to mind when watching a Araújo feature is heartsick. That applies to the feeling bestowed on both the audience and her characters (the good guys and the bad guys). While her first film, the unrelenting ‘Soft & Quiet,’ was cleverly designed to appear as if it was shot in a single real-time take, her sophomore feature is more about the steady accumulation of dread.”
“Josephine” first premiered at Sundance, and has made the festival circuit this fall to great acclaim. At TIFF, Araújo spoke to IndieWire about how the film has been a slow, stop-start process from a first draft in 2014 to an important 2018 revision as part of that year’s Sundance Labs, to working with Tatum and Chan and casting Reeves, only six weeks out from shooting. But the young breakout star of the film, who is from the same part of San Francisco that Araújo grew up in, was meant to be.
“I think everyone felt a real responsibility to make sure Mason had a good experience,” Araújo told IndieWire. “And I think that bonded us all as cast and crew. It’s like, there’s something more innocent than us here.”
“Josephine” releases in theaters on Friday, November 20. Watch the film’s latest trailer below.