Written & Directed by Michael Tolkin
With: Mimi Rogers as Sharon, David Duchovny as Randy, Kimberly Cullum as Mary, Darwyn Carson as Maggie, Patrick Bauchau as Vic, James LeGros as Tommy
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The Rapture (Latin for: religious narcosis.) opens with a tracking shot of phone company drones in cubicles that is supposed to be reminiscent of the visually striking shot of acres of desk-bound employees of the Atlas Insurance Company in King Vidor’s 1928 silent classic, The Crowd. Trouble is, director Michel Tolkin lacks King Vidor’s keen eye and sense of pacing.
After an immeasurable length of tedious time the camera comes to rest on the cubicle containing the luscious form of the dead-eyed information operator, Sharon (Hebrew for: fertile plain). “City and listing?” “Ah, Sin City Yum Yums.”
Sharon spends her evenings in group sex and other sinful pastimes, like smoking cigarettes and making banal observations. One such evening she and her middle-aged boyfriend (who “likes to watch”) hook up with an ex killer for hire named Randy (played by David Duchovny without the boyish charm evident in his role of Fox Mulder on The X-Files a couple of years hence) and his big boobed girlfriend.
Physical pleasure is not enough for Sharon. She feels a void in her life. She sits in her drab undecorated apartment, no books or music (other than the ugly music tract that burdens much of the film), tearing up magazines to make a nest for the hamsters she does not own. Then:
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Do me a favor
Open the door and let ’em in, yeah, let ’em in
Sister Suzie, brother John
Martin Luther, Phil and Don
Brother Michael, auntie Gin
Open the door and let ’em in, yeah
Two Jesus freaks saunter in to proclaim the Good News. The Great Spookidude himself, God, is fixin’ to leave his throne up in heaven and return to Earth to set things right. You’d best get on His side, the winning side and come on in for the Big Win. Oh, and you got to say that you love ’em, even if you do not mean it, he just likes to hear it.
I never did believe in miracles
But I’ve a feeling it’s time to try
I never did believe in the ways of magic
But I’m beginning to wonder why
Don’t, don’t break the spell
It would be different and you know it will
You, you make loving fun
And I don’t have to tell you, but you’re the only one
Yeah Baby, Tell it!
The pair of Jesus freaks moan out their lines like Actor’s Studio alums. Spookie will return sooner than later, blah, blah, blah…
The seed of Christianity is planted when she overhears her fellow phone company employees caucus over He is coming, and He is pissed-off dream they all had. The Earl is mentioned. Earl? No, pearl, you moron. And The Boy. Yup, they got ’em a boy seer. Known amongst the cognoscente of superstition as . . .Theobule Boy. Oh, and Gabriel’s Trumpet blasts out a single note of B flat.
This snooze fest picks up a bit with the arrival of a hitchhiker played by James LeGros, the only character with a personality. He is added only to provide Sharon with a revolver as the means to a epiphany.
Holy Christ, finally she gets with the Baby Jesus, and about bores the dead with telling anyone who will listen all about it. Her theology never progresses beyond, ”have you heard the Word?” All the while sporting an imbecilic grin.
The Pearl makes an appearance. For reasons that passeth all understand she marries Randy and converts him, the poor bastard.
Five years later Sharon has popped out a daughter and Randy has been promoted from Apprentice Killer III (Ret) to a manager of an unnamed business ran along the lines of Jesus Saves. In fact, he is so adept at it, he is promoted to sit at the right hand of Spooky up in heaven through the agency of a disgruntled ex employee with a shotgun (assault rifles being reserved for mass slaughter in public schools).
Shortly after Randy is sent knockin’ on heavens’ door, Sharon gets a vision of a picture of Randy coming off the automatic developer at a PhotoMat. He seems to be beckoning her to a rock formation out in the desert.
She takes it as a sign the End is Near, so packs up spare clothes, a flashlight, and the one item everyone saved will need at rapture. A stainless steel snub-nosed .38 special. But no food. Spooky will provide. She grabs her kid and skedaddles.
Out at Desert One it seems the End is Not Near enough, and Sharon and the kid starves. She sends her little girl on ahead to see baby Jesus using the .38. This gets her arrested. Sharon thought she had a contract with the Almighty. It had three elements like all contracts:
An Offer: Salvation and eternal life in heaven, or some such place. Acceptance: Sharon gives-up sex for pleasure, and freedom of thought (what little thinking she bothered with). Consideration: Sharon gives lip service to Spookidude and sends telepathic messages to his answering service.
She concludes he broke the terms of the contract so she rescinds her adoration. Her faith is in terminal remission.
After what seems eons of time the B Flat horn call sounds and her little girl arrives with come clown from the screen extras guild holding a flaming sword to tell her Time’s Up, Rapture’s here. All mommie Sharon must do in order to enter heaven is to say the magic words she loves the god she thinks betrayed her. She doesn’t even have to mean it.
Enough has been too much and she declines. Her apostasy does not earn her the eternal lake of fire, no, she is sentenced to purgatory on the lakeshore by Deus irae.
There was the kernel of a good idea in this story, but writer Tolkin’s incompetence was not able to nurture it. The story structure is haphazard and unorganized, and the dialogue sounds as if Tolkin’s has never listened to how other people talk.
The direction, if you can call it by that title, is beyond hopeless, clearly unplanned and unorganized, let alone of a consistent vision. The camera framing is without a cinematic or artistic sense, and visual transitions nonexistent. The actors recite rather than act the dialogue.
Critic John Simon summed it up best:
“A piece of apocalyptic trash megalomaniacal to the point of imbecility”
John Simon on Film: Criticism 1982-2001. Applause Books. p. 322.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Please feel free to read Goat’s comments on Raptures
and Matt’s Cale’s articles on the movie’s Unsung Character
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