Descent

NC-17

Released Aug 10, 2007

1 hr. 40 min.

Drama

Mystery & Thriller

List

35%

34 Reviews

Tomatometer

33%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Maya (Rosario Dawson) is a friendly college senior who accepts an invitation to dinner from fellow student Jared (Chad Faust). After the date, Jared takes Maya back to his apartment, where he assaults and rapes her. Maya is transformed by the atrocity. Upon graduating, she takes a retail position and turns to drugs. But when she begins graduate school, she finds Jared in one of the classes where she is an assistant. She jumps at the opportunity to get revenge on the monster who raped her.

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Critics Consensus

Descent has the potential to make a statement about sexual violence, but falls flat by focusing on revenge rather than Rosario Dawson's emotional state.

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dude m

Maybe I'm weird but I don't have fun watching rapes. I wanted to punch in the nose everyone involved in the making of this krap sandwich.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The creators of Descent seemed to want to send the message that rape is terrible and it affects people badly. While it does sort of show how it affects people, it comes across as a kinky porno more than a movie trying to send a message. A man rapes a woman, so the woman gets revenge by tying him up, raping him with a dildo and then the rapist is raped by a man. What message does this send? To me it just looks like a weird porno that some people will probably jerk off to rather than learn something from, especially in the last scene where the rapist gets raped by a woman and a man. It's literally just a BDSM scene. It could've been done much better.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I think she went over board with revenge. We don't know if she did take any legal action but it was way over done.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

01/17/23

Full Review

Audience Member

why would Dawson sign up for this? its unbearably dull that does nothing for the character.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Descent fails with its good intentions of addressing the very serious issue of rape and sexual violence. Its setup of Dawson's character, Maya, meeting a charming young man than being assaulted by him is ruined by the film's proceeding murkiness. From then on the film detours into scenes of Maya befriending and hanging with creepy, repugnant debauchee, Jared, at nightclubs and engaging in obscure, pretentious conversations that never mention or reference her assault. Thus the audience is left with no insight of how she's feeling in the aftermath of her rape until a 7 minute revenge rape scene is peremptorily presented, which is even more disturbing, graphic, and sadistic than Maya's.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/17/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Watched this movie and felt with a half-way decent director it could have been really good revenge movie. Instead it's slow and drawn out. The act of rape committed against Maya was not nearly as violent as it could have been. If her rape was half as sickening and degrading as "Jared's" I could justify, for lack of a better term, his rape. I actually felt his pain and wanted to save him.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

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Talia Lugacy

Director

Rosario Dawson

Maya

Chad Faust

Jared

Marcus Patrick

Adrian

Scott Bailey

Alex

Alexie Gilmore

Seline

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Wesley Morris

Boston Globe

Rated: 3/4

Nov 24, 2011

Full Review

Joshua Rothkopf

Time Out

Rated: 2/5

Nov 17, 2011

Full Review

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Entertainment Weekly

Rated: A-

Sep 7, 2011

Full Review

Bullz-Eye.com

Rated: 4/5

Apr 4, 2011

Full Review

JoBlo

JoBlo's Movie Network

Rated: 7/10

Apr 4, 2011

Full Review

Prairie Miller

NewsBlaze

Revenge is less than sweet, to say the least, in particular for the audience, veering between sickening and pathetically pornographic.

Nov 11, 2007

Full Review

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Synopsis

Maya (Rosario Dawson) is a friendly college senior who accepts an invitation to dinner from fellow student Jared (Chad Faust). After the date, Jared takes Maya back to his apartment, where he assaults and rapes her. Maya is transformed by the atrocity. Upon graduating, she takes a retail position and turns to drugs. But when she begins graduate school, she finds Jared in one of the classes where she is an assistant. She jumps at the opportunity to get revenge on the monster who raped her.

Director: Talia Lugacy
Executive Producer: Michael Almog, Michael Bassick, Michael Califra, Danny Fisher
Screenwriter: Talia Lugacy, Brian Priest
Distributor: City Lights Pictures
Production Co: City Lights Pictures
Rating: NC-17 (A Brutal Rape)
Genre: Drama, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 10, 2007, Limited
Release Date (DVD): Feb 5, 2008
Box Office (Gross USA): $13.4K