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Celeste (Loren Lott) is thirty-ish, attractive and successful at her job - and yet she's single. Sure, she has a daughter, but Aila's (Jojo Redd) such a cute and well-behaved kid she's not likely to drive many suitors away. Even Celeste's best friend Sheila (Shiobann Amisial) is concerned about this, so she sets up a chance meeting of Celeste with Noah (Jordan Pope), an attractive bar owner about her age, and though Celeste's reserved at first, she soon falls for his caring peronality as well as his very un-pushy behaviour - especially since she has certain hang-ups about having sex. Now sure, Noah's first meeting with Celeste's parents (Clifton Powell, BerNadette Stanis) goes rather poorly, but still he proposes to Celeste. But before they can marry, Celeste has to make her big confession to Noah - ever since she's been raped six years ago, losing her virginity that way, she's suffering from panic attacks, and her attitude towards sex has understandably suffered. This hits Noah harder than she would have expected, and eventually he confesses to her why - because back when he was her rapist ...

A rather unusual movie, this: It really starts out as a romantic comedy, to eventually steer towards thriller territory, and ultimately turns out to be a character piece of a woman seeking closure to a past trauma. And that this works is thanks to a very clever script that understands to interweave the very diverse genre elements with one another and really to the end stays away from taking the easy route of a heroine-villain dichotomy (even though the guilt's firmly blamed on the rapist's shoulders) and instead explores the story's many levels. And a very competent cast make the movie pretty relatable then, and also suitably compelling,.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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