IGN.com|AskMen.com|Rotten Tomatoes|GameSpy|FilePlanet|TeamXbox|CheatsCodesGuides|GameStats|Direct2Drive
RottenTomatoes.com
Register | Log In | What is RT?
Home Movies DVD Celebrities News Critics Trailers & Pictures The Vine Forums
Box Office | In Theaters | Opening | Upcoming | Best Of | Certified Fresh | Showtimes
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches by subscribing to our Google Subscribed Links profile.
 
Movies / On DVD / Descent
Descent

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Email to a Friend
  • Add to List
  • Bookmark and Share
  • Get this Movie
  • Buy Poster External Icon
  • Visit Official Site External Icon

Descent (2007)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
24 %
Tomatometer

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

Reviews Counted: 25

Fresh: 6

Rotten:19

Average Rating: 4.4/10

Consensus: Descent has the potential to make a statement about sexual violence, but falls flat by focusing on revenge rather than Rosario Dawson's emotional state.

Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release: Aug 10, 2007 Limited

Synopsis: Rosario Dawson produces and stars in DESCENT, a project directed by her real-life friend Talia Lugacy, and one close to the actress's heart. A very dark film, DESCENT assures viewers from the very first frame that something is going to go... Rosario Dawson produces and stars in DESCENT, a project directed by her real-life friend Talia Lugacy, and one close to the actress's heart. A very dark film, DESCENT assures viewers from the very first frame that something is going to go wrong. There's just something off about the colors, the sets, the slow-moving dialogue. Many critics have said the film begins with Dawson as a carefree college girl navigating the fun, party-filled world of college. But Dawson's character, Maya, is not your typical sorority girl. Instead, she's a smart, serious student who spends much of her time alone and has apparently not had a date in months. So when a good-looking guy named Jared asks her out and will not take no for an answer, she reluctantly accepts, having no idea that their short-lived romance will culminate in his date-raping her in a basement. DESCENT is about revenge and also about the downward spiral that a young woman endures as a result of being sexually violated. Rather than telling anyone about the rape, Maya keeps it to herself, transforming step by step into a girl unlike the one she was before. Trading in her studious ways for a lifestyle of nightclubs, drugs, and risky sex, Maya blames herself for what happened and seems intent on self-destruction. Lugacy's film spans several months but inches along at a slow pace due to the simplicity of the plot. The majority of the film's drama takes place inside its protagonist and in the final revenge scene. The film's final take will prompt discussion among viewers, who are left to interpret whether revenge itself can actually heal wounds or just open new ones. [More]

Starring: Rosario Dawson, Chad Faust, Vanessa Ferlito, Wilson Jermaine Heredia

Starring: Rosario Dawson, Chad Faust, Vanessa Ferlito, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Tracie Thoms

Director: Talia Lugacy

Director: Talia Lugacy
Screenwriter: Talia Lugacy, Brian Priest
Producer: Rosario Dawson, Morris S. Levy, Talia Lugacy
Composer: Alex Moulton
Studio: City Lights Pictures

[See More Credits]

  • Trailers
  • Pictures
  • Trailer
    >
1 of 1

See More Movie Trailers & Pictures

Get This Movie

  • Buy DVD
 
 
 
 
Release:

Feb 5, 2008

No Details Exist

Reviews for Descent

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
Arrange By: Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 
Ratings Image

Revenge is less than sweet, to say the least, in particular for the audience, veering between sickening and pathetically pornographic.

Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment Comment
11/11/07
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
08/30/07
Boxoffice Magazine
Ratings Image

Dawson, armed not with a whole lot of dialogue but her endlessly eloquent face, makes each note of the character's journey pierce, whether with pain or ecstasy.

Full Review Source: Mr. Brown's Movies | comment Comment
08/19/07
Michael Dequina
Mr. Brown's Movies
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Entertainment Insiders | comment Comment
08/18/07
Eric Lurio
Entertainment Insiders
Ratings Image

It's been a while since we saw a demagogic feminist exploitation revenge drama, and Descent, while top-heavy with 'agenda,' is shrewdly done.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
08/15/07
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Sludgy and slack [...] pointlessly vague and abstruse.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
08/15/07
Frank Lovece
Film Journal International
Ratings Image

Though a clearly gifted new filmmaker, Lugacy doesn't get a handle on the combustible material, and she gets scalded in the process.

Full Review Source: Onion AV Club | comment Comment
08/14/07
Scott Tobias
Onion AV Club
Ratings Image

Ugliness of story, character and technique cannot hold a movie audience and do more harm than good towards seeking a professed corrective.

Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | comment Comment
08/12/07
Donald J. Levit
ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Ratings Image

A hollow fabrication in the pursuit of someone's sick idea of redemption. I didn't pay to see it... but I want my wasted time back.

Full Review Source: Cinema Signals | comment Comment
08/11/07
Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals
Ratings Image

There's too much arty writhing and too little concrete character development.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
08/10/07
Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Ratings Image

Look-at-me-I'm-a-filmmaker photography, pacing that has all the thrills of waiting in line at the post office and an utterly predictable plot combine to make the movie even worse than the hacky chick revenge fantasy now showing on channel 186 of your box.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
08/10/07
Kyle Smith
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

No moviegoer has done anything to deserve the images that director Talia Lugacy would throw in their face.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
08/10/07
Jack Mathews
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

[Dramatizes] the experience and the psychological aftermath of rape with a vividness I’ve never seen in an American film.

comment Comment
08/10/07
Matt Zoller Seitz
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Descent is the head-slappingly awful picture that turns rape into a comedy.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
08/09/07
Brian Orndorf
eFilmCritic.com
Ratings Image

The movie is just a vicious, pathetic excuse for Lugacy to live out her own twisted hate-fantasies on the big screen.

Full Review Source: CinemaBlend.com | comment Comment
08/09/07
Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com
Ratings Image

"an exercise in human soullessness."

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
08/09/07
Norm Schrager
Filmcritic.com
Ratings Image

There's a potentially groundbreaking story lurking somewhere in Descent, but it stops at the revenge, thereby robbing us of what might have been a vitally important moviegoing experience.

Full Review Source: Aisle Seat | comment Comment
08/09/07
Mike McGranaghan
Aisle Seat
Ratings Image

It's indie provocation trapped between shock and blah.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
08/09/07
Robert Abele
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Apart from its obvious exploitation element and disjointed second act, the movie achieves a cool momentum by sheer force of the intimate power play that takes place over the course of a slow build-up toward its sex-schock finale.

Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | comment Comment
08/09/07
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com
Ratings Image

It's a lot like a '70s exploitation movie, with its determination to seduce and shock the viewer with alternating currents of electrical stimulus, and its weird combination of arty arch-decadence and neo-Victorian moralizing.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
08/09/07
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
all

Latest News for Descent

October 17, 2007: Descent self-destructs into the pornography of revenge, as sympathy for a date rape victim fails to remain established amid a kind of shifting brutality among the various characters. Opens in new window
More...

August 09, 2007: Critical Consensus: Rush Hour 3 Runs On Fumes; Stardust Shines; Daddy Day Camp Is Laugh-Free
This week at the movies, we've got wacky cops (Rush Hour 3, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker), fairy tales (Stardust, starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer), the... More...

August 07, 2007: A claustrophobic psychological thriller which marks the impressive writing/directorial debut of Talia Lugacy who has imbued her heroine with an inscrutability which keeps the viewer guessing and makes the denouement that much more shocking a reveal. Opens in new window
More...

August 04, 2007: Trailer & Poster review Opens in new window
More...

See More Topics...

Related Forums for Descent

(2007/Rated NC-17)-Talia Lugacy's DESCENT is a rape-victim fantasy film for rapists?
by: ReelReviewer.com 2/2


Anyone else seen this?
by: green_shine 11/27/07


Check out the Brand new trailer
by: celebslides 9/5/07
See All

More DVDs

Top Rentals
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
FRESH: 1 93% Iron Man
FRESH: 2 85% Forgetting Sarah Marshall
ROTTEN: 3 50% Sex and the City - The…
ROTTEN: 4 52% Leatherheads
ROTTEN: 5 12% Made of Honor

More Rentals…

New On DVD This Week
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
FRESH: 77 77% Indiana Jones and the …
FRESH: 97 97% 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
FRESH: 88 88% Mongol
FRESH: 78 78% Standard Operating Procedure
ROTTEN: 30 30% War, Inc.

More New Releases…

What’s Hot On RT

Brad Pitt, Florist?

Brad Pitt, Florist?

De Niro, Tucci in What Just Happened

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

Plan your costume with our Halloween Guide!

That's Hot

That's Hot

Paris Hilton picks her favorite films.

Toon vs. Toon

Toon vs. Toon

We rank the best animated films of all time!

More Info

RT To Go

Get this widget! Movie Reviews

Around The Network

  • Descent at Rotten Tomatoes
  • Descent at IGN
 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo

IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | ModCenter | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive


By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2008, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.