‘Josephine’ Review: A Remarkable Debut from Mason Reeves Helps Keep a Brutal Story Afloat [B-] | Sundance
Josephine opens with a POV inside a garage, eyes peering out at Channing Tatum. “Scared doesn’t live here!” he says. It’s a race to hit the garage door button and make it out before it closes. The door closes on our 8-year-old titular protagonist but not for long as she makes it out and sets out on a very early morning run through Golden Gate Park with her father. It’s not long before Damien (Tatum) lets Josephine outpace her but a fork in the path sends the parent and child on two very different journeys. For Josephine, it’s a game. She hides behind a tree as she hears her father call her name. But then she’s quickly distracted by a woman (Syra McCarthy) going into a remote bathroom after a jog. Almost immediately, a man comes around the corner and into the bathroom where we, and Josephine, hear a scuffle. One that’s brought outside in the open as she witness a vicious and excruciatingly graphic sexual assault. Josephine (Mason Reeves) remains quiet and stone-faced even as the rapist sees her and begins to approach before her father is able to intervene and give chase.
From there, Beth de Araújo’s second feature film unfolds with the turmoil of two parents seemingly unable to talk to their child about what she’s seen or how to protect her. Much of the story rests on the shoulders of young Reeves, whose nearly emotionless visage is both impressive and a bit terrifying. It’s an excellent performance as her quiet resolve is often punctuated by acts of violence against fellow students, even her own father. “None of you can rape me!” she exclaims after a soccer game, much to the horror of her coach. This revelation opens up a frank conversation between Josephine and her mother Claire (a fantastic Gemma Chan) that breaks down walls she probably didn’t think she’d have to address so early in her child’s life.
de Araújo employs some unconventional methods with her two-hour family drama (that ideally would be better suited with a trimmer edit), including dropping the rapist (played by Philip Ettinger) into Josephine’s life like ghost haunting. A one-take scene at the family’s dining table where Josphine must detail the event to a detective is a swirling camera of creepy terror and remarkably effective work from cinematographer Greta Zozula.
But, as good as Reeves is (and Chan in her limited role), it’s Tatum that falters. In the film’s quieter moments he nails the desperation and sadness of a father that couldn’t protect his child, but in his bigger ‘plate-smashing’ moments he comes off completely false. Those moments aren’t entirely his fault, they’re punctuated by a script that gives him nothing but cliched dialogue to work with. Tatum has an affable handsome charm that also lets him be a bit of an everyman. Just last year in Roofman he was able to play both sides with a perfect balance of tone. Here he’s just rather coarsely written, bulldozing Josephine into self defense classes that backfire, yelling at her when she nearly endangers her newly pregnant mother. A scene when Josephine sees her parents having sex and immediately (and understandably) sees it as the act of violence she saw, tries to save her mother. But the ensuing talk about sex education borders on dangerously clumsy.
Knowing that the story is inspired by de Araújo’s own experience lends credence to some of Damien and Claire’s almost irrationally irresponsible parenting but their actions will have you reaching for child protective services rather than for a hopeful outcome. It might make sense dramaturgically, but their absurdity begins to unroot the film when it needs grounding the most.
As the story lurches to its inevitable courtroom finale, there’s a cruelly didactic nature to the proceedings (the spinning room motif is brought back here as every person in room silently stares at young Josephine) and while we don’t see the results of the jury, a final scene on the beach with Reeves and Tatum lets us know pretty unequivocally what happened. “I’m not scared anymore,” she tells him. Remarkably, and unintentionally awkwardly, she seems to know that she’s really gone through this journey and this cathartic experience on her own. A cynical lesson for a child, it seems. Hopefully her parents have learned one as well.
Grade: B-
This review is from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival where Josephine had its world premiere and won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. Narrative Drama.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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