Tessa is a very ambitious defense lawyer, who had been doing a very good job even though this included representing clients who were accused of sexual assault. When she suffers a sexual assault herself, she begins to question everything she thought she knew about the law.
The timing of the release of Prima Facie in the UK couldn’t have been more poignant, given the conviction of Russell Brand and other allegations in the past week, which have consumed the news feeds.
This is based on a one woman play that won both Olivier and Tony Awards.
Tessa has done very well for herself after coming from a poor background and getting herself into the world of Law, a place she has always wanted to be but feels as though she must work twice as hard as everyone else. Within the firm that she works at, they seem to get along pretty well and Julian was rather charming.
They start seeing each other and it seems as though everything is going well between them, and has the potential to be a nice and good relationship. However, that was about to take the worst possible turn for Tessa when he rapes her. She tells him no after being sick, and he takes no notice at all. That scene is very difficult to watch, and we get to see how those moments haunt her in the aftermath.
The thing is though Tessa knows it will be a tough journey, and considering she has experience of actually helping the man get away with it she is about to face the reality of just how wrong she had been with all of those cases. Quite frankly the most brutal and horrendous way to realise that! A truly tough subject matter and I am not sure if it would actually help or hinder women coming forward when they have been sexually assaulted or not, the stats put on the screen at the end are awful.
It attempts to be groundbreaking and daring at times, but often falls short – I guess the transition from one woman play to a full film cast was tricky. The performance from Cynthia Erivo is the biggest highlight as she once again demonstrates just what a talented actor she really is. Noma Dumezweni has a couple of good scenes as well with Erivo as her mother.
