Even in the event “Phoenix Rising”, you weren’t paying shut consideration to cultural gossip in 2007, the uproar about Marilyn Manson’s “Heart-Shaped Glasses” video—starring his 20-year-old girlfriend, actress Evan Rachel Wood—in all probability reached your ears. Manson was all the time criticized for taking issues too far, however, “Heart-Shaped Glasses” was one other stage. “Heart-Shaped Glasses” was a turning level for Wooden, who had first made a splash together with her efficiency in 2003’s “13,” and obtained labeled as a “troubled teen.” After the “Heart-Shaped Glasses” video, she was “hassle,” interval. Through the years, as gossip blogger Perez Hilton has often tried to re-brand himself as a kinder warm-fuzzier model, it is not possible to overlook that he nicknamed the actress “Evan Rachel Whore,” and would scribble the phrase “HO” over her face. She was 18, 19 years previous. This was the form of “press” Wooden obtained, and it created a vitality around her, one she was helpless to fight, notably since she was trapped in an abusive relationship with Manson at the time. In 2021, Wooden determined to go public together with her abuse allegations, and Amy Berg’s two-part documentary “Phoenix Rising” particulars that course of.
“Phoenix Rising” opens in 2020, with Wooden poring over her 2007 journals, studying sections aloud to her buddy Illma Gore (launched as “activist”). Wooden met Manson (known as “Brian Warner,” his authentic identity, all through) on the Chateau Marmont in 2005. Wooden was 18 years previous, he was 36. Manson had seen “13,” and wished to collaborate on a challenge about Lewis Carroll referred to as “Phantasmagoria.” Manson was then married to burlesque artist Dita von Teese. The “friendship” with Wooden segued right into a relationship (and doubtless led to a finish to his marriage). The Manson-Wooden relationship was tabloid-fodder (as his relationships all the time have been), and “Heart-Shaped Glasses” fanned the flames. Wooden continued to work in attention-grabbing initiatives (“Across the Universe,” “The Wrestler”), however behind the scenes issues have been spiraling uncontrolled. She went on tour with Manson. He was, based on her, merciless, controlling, abusive. It took her a few makes an attempt to lastly extricate herself, helped by the intervention of household and associates.
Manson has denied all of Wooden’s allegations, and just filed a lawsuit against her, the place he makes some fairly damning accusations of his personal. Different ladies have come ahead telling very related tales to Wooden’s, and there’s an emotional scene in “Phoenix Rising” when the survivors get collectively to swap notes. Alongside all of this, Wooden reminisces about her childhood, and what it was preferred to be a younger teenage actress in Hollywood (newsflash: it is not fair). There is a very temporary part exhibiting her current makes an attempt to increase the statute of limitations for home abuse allegations to 10 years, in an invoice referred to as the Phoenix Act. The leaping round in chronology is unnecessarily complicated, and the Phoenix Act battle—the place she testifies earlier than the California legislature, pleading the invoice’s case to completely different representatives—is over in about 10 minutes, by no means to be talked about once more. The truncation of Wooden’s very attention-grabbing years-long advocacy of the Phoenix Act is a baffling alternative.
There are a few different missteps alongside the way in which, primarily the usage of animation (and solely within the first episode). Leaning closely on the Alice in Wonderland theme, Wooden’s story is illustrated as a wide-eyed younger lady—seeking to be about 9 or ten years previous—being sucked right into a scary underworld, punctuated with pages exhibiting the definitions for phrases like “grooming,” “love-bombing,” “isolation” in storybook-type fonts. The illustrations are so hallucinatory they take away from—verses underline—the seriousness of Wooden’s allegations, and the “loaded language” has a sameness to it that strips it of a few of its energy. There is a scene the place Wooden defaces one of many watercolor portraits Manson did of her, and this too feels added on, heavy-handed, pointless. Wooden’s trauma is plain. An extra easy method would have served “Phoenix Rising” properly.
Within the documentary “On the Record” (2020), former A&R government Drew Dixon grapples with the tough choice of whether or not to go public together with her allegations towards music mogul Russell Simmons. Filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick keep near Dixon all through, and in so doing elegantly expose one of many bigger themes so tragically frequent in these abuse tales: Dixon was run out of the enterprise she not solely beloved however helped construct. All of us lose out when somebody like Dixon now does not feel secure in her personal trade. If a lady vanishes for seemingly no purpose, there’s normally a narrative like this behind it. (See: Annabella Sciorra). As a fan of Evan Rachel Wooden’s work since she first burst onto the scene in 2003, it has all the time been barely complicated why she did not work extra. She’s all the time so good! Properly, now we all know why. “Phoenix Rising” might have used a few of “On the Document”‘s coolness and readability.