” presents a searing, at times shocking exposé of alleged criminal acts. Yet here, as in those earlier chronicles, what’s extraordinary is the disturbingly intimate communion the film creates between the audience and the survivors. Not just the facts but the meaning of these alleged crimes comes scarily alive in the emotional details of their telling.
In the testimonials of sexual abuse that have come to light in the wake of #MeToo, it might be an exaggeration to say that the experience of the victims has been overshadowed. Yet it’s part of the nature of these crimes that when they’re exposed, the people who commit them can exert the domineering force of mesmerizing monsters. Even now, to take in the horrific and revelatory reports about Harvey Weinstein is to focus, inevitably…on Harvey Weinstein.
She talks about the harassment she endured within the corridors of Def Jam, where, she alleges, Simmons would come into her office with his penis exposed. He was someone she idolized, and she recalls how she would try to rationalize his behavior . But one evening, after partying at Bowery Bar, Simmons pressured her into coming up to his apartment to hear a demo, then asked her to go into his bedroom to get the CD.