The power of that one story a person needs to tell the world must have been on my mind when I also watched The Luckiest Girl Alive soon after Where the Crawdads Sing. Inspired by realistic events overlaid with fictional gloss, this one is also about a woman who had a story so powerful to tell, that it there was no way to continue living without telling it brutally unadorned.
Sadly this movie reminded me of two of my close friends who were victims of sexual abuse as pre-adolescents. One is married and the other is not - she could not bring herself to trust any man that much. My married friend has struggled for the entirety of her marriage because of the dark, immovable cloud that hangs over intimacy. They are still together after over thirty years and in no small part because the man she is married to loves her unconditionally - he does not expect or demand "normalcy". He values how amazing and exceptional my friend is.
I could not help wondering if they could both experience release and real freedom if they told their stories and better yet confronted the preparators, force them to admit what they did just as Ani does.
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