Jodie Foster’s filmic characters often seem to be fighting the rest of the world just to survive. As the wild child Nell she had to survive in modern society; as Sarah in The Accused she also had to battle the world and its judgements; she fought for her (and her daughter’s) survival from the confines of a small room in Panic Room and she had to fight a planeload of people to find her missing daughter in Flight Plan. In her latest film, The Brave One, she is radio personality Erica Bain whose survival in her hometown of New York becomes a daily battle after her fiancé David (Naveen Andrews) is beaten to death by a group of young thugs.
Erica barely survives the beating and awakes from a three-week coma to find her world has completely changed. The previously friendly streets that she had used for her radio commentaries now hold threats to her safety around every corner. At first she can’t even leave her apartment, and when she does eventually leave, her first act is to acquire a gun and some training on how to use it. Circumstances conspire to throw her into threatening situations, leading her to becoming an accidental vigilante. As her relationship with the stressed-out Detective Mercer (Terrance Howard) becomes closer, Erica charts a course that she wouldn’t have been capable of taking a few weeks earlier.
Foster gives an amazing performance in this subversive film that leaves the audience with a moral quandary. The audience, as well as the general public in the film, applauds the killing when it is done in self-defense. Targeting a lowlife whose intention is to do harm is certainly quite cathartic, but questions of vigilante revenge and lawlessness soon begin to surface. Not everybody will agree with the ending of the film, but Jodie Foster’s character at least manages to survive!
Directed by Neil Jordan (MA)
