Rain Without Thunder

Buy This Item Rain Without Thunder by Orion Home Video  Available from Amazon  $95.99  on 11-16-2008     The critics did not get or understand this film when it was released. Although there were good reviews, many critics, particularly the NY Times, just could not get past the film's style. Notwithstanding the "talking heads," "Rain Without Thunder" is edited and composed in such a way as to be both dramatic and timeless. The acting is superb, naturalistic and interesting. It is a shame that the film remains locked away in the vaults of MGM collecting dust. Reader Reviews I saw this movie for the first time this week. This is a movie that is filmed entirely as a series of interviews by a television reporter, following the imprisonment of a wealthy and White mother and her teenage daughter. The unmarried teenaged daughter had recently become pregnant in the year 2042, and she and her boyfriend had decided marriage and parenthood were not options they could pursue. Unfortunately, current laws made it criminal for women to seek abortions (or "P-Terms", as it would be called then). Women who could not afford to leave the country for abortions were often caught and imprisoned (usually non-White, poor mothers), while wealthier women were getting abortions overseas. The government debate on how to catch the wealthier women was chilling - the debate included questions of pregnancy-testing all women at the airports, and ultimately concluded with a legislative decision to create the "Unborn Child Kidnapping Act." Thus, pregnant women leaving the country were charged with the crime of kidnapping for the intent to murder an unborn child. Interviews with various individuals examining the imprisonment of the 2 women addressed issues of racial and economic inequality, "federally-mandated motherhood," the history and evolution of the abortion debate (pointing out that the year 2000 saw an overwhelming change towards the conservative right - remember this was filmed in 1992), and the complacency of women towards the abortion debate. It was this complacency which was partially blamed for the radical changes in Roe v Wade, which in fact occured by courts "whittling it away" with small and seemingly insignificant changes. The interview style and the futuristic jargon used in the movie can be tedious and distracting. There is little to no "action" in this movie - it is strictly a series of interviews looking at the multifaceted picture of how abortion rights could change over the next 50 years (the film was made in 1992, and the movie takes place in 2042). The predictions are chilling, as several of them have come true, 13 years after the film was released. I thought the interviews with the "Atwood Society Director" were the most predictive of future trends. I count myself as one of those people who moved from activism to complacency over the past 13 years, and saw that comfortable denial being exposed by this film. It is an angry and scary film, and many viewers could get turned off by the pounding message of the movie - which I think is unfortunate. It has a message which, like "An Inconvenient Truth," should rouse us from our complacency and call us to action.

Rain Without Thunder Available from Amazon Price: $95.99 Updated on 11-16-2008.

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