Phone Booth Scenes from “The Accused” (1988)

The same phone booth makes two appearances in The Accused, the 1988 film starring Kelly McGillis and Jodie Foster. In the opening moments Ken Joyce, played by Bernie Coulson, is seen placing a 911 emergency call from a phone booth to report a gang rape in progress across the street at a bar called The Mill, on Mill Road. The 911 dispatcher rejects Ken Joyce’s report on account of Mr. Joyce refusing to give his name. This call remains in play throughout the film. Without giving any spoilers it is safe to say that Ken Joyce is but one hero of this film.

This is a hard film to watch. Pretty much anything depicting rape makes me hit fast-forward, but I managed to get through the epic rape scene on the pinball machine in The Accused on account of Ken Joyce’s presence and his seemingly inevitable contribution to the equally inevitable conclusion. Finally seeing what happened that night at The Mill felt like evidence.

I had similar trouble with a certain scene in Dead Ringers, its payphone scene mentioned here earlier this week. Guess which scene?

In The Accused I feel especial incredulity for the Scorpion character, played by Leo Rossi. I see characters like his and and ask Where do these people exist? Scorpion’s shit-eating grin and self-satisfied demeanor, cloaking his misogyny and insecurity, are just about impossible to believe in The Accused. The record store/parking lot scene in particular stands out for depicting unbelievably sociopathic behavior from a free person walking the streets.

I’ve never been a Jodie Foster fan. From the first time I saw her as Becky Thatcher in Tom Sawyer (1973) she seemed unnatural and artificial to me on the screen. That’s about the same now, though the opening and closing scenes of The Accused deserve no small amount of respect for Foster’s skills. It is almost everything in between from her that bores me in The Accused.