In HBO’s two-part documentary “Phoenix Rising,” Evan Rachel Wooden recounts the alleged abuse she endured throughout her relationship with shock rocker Marilyn Manson, starting with how they met when she was an adolescent in 2006 up via her painful resolution to publicly title him as her alleged abuser in 2021.
The movie, which premieres Tuesday and continues Wednesday, makes the case that Wooden was “groomed” by the singer when she was simply 18 and he was 37, setting her up for a four-year relationship through which she claims he repeatedly drugged her and threatened her life whereas isolating her from family and friends.
Wooden claims within the movie that Manson’s sadistic, violent conduct included raping her on digital camera whereas capturing his 2007 video for “Coronary heart-Formed Glasses”: “I used to be coerced right into a business intercourse act beneath false pretenses,” she alleges. “That’s when the primary crime was dedicated in opposition to me.” Manson (a.okay.a. Brian Warner) declined to touch upon particular allegations made within the movie however in a earlier assertion denied “any and all claims of sexual assault or abuse of anybody.” Earlier this month Manson sued Wooden for defamation over her sexual abuse allegations in opposition to him, which he claims are a “malicious falsehood.”
Wooden was a toddler actor whose large break got here at age 14 within the provocative movie “13,” an image that launched her profession but additionally set her up for “Lolita”-like roles in Hollywood. Manson rose to fame within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s with provocative music, a ghoulish look and twisted iconography: Hollywood glam meets Nazi symbolism meets satanic ritual. Wooden was relationship Jamie Bell and Manson was married to Dita Von Teese when the 2 met at a celebration on the Chateau Marmont.
Within the movie, director Amy Berg (“The Case Towards Adnan Syed”) chronicles Wooden’s downward spiral in testimonials from Wooden and her household. As soon as in Manson’s world, he managed her, they allege: She was denied sleep, misplaced weight and was hooked on medicine. She branded an “M” on her internal thigh by way of scarification. However the movie doesn’t spend all its time on the poisonous affair.
“Phoenix Rising” additionally follows Wooden and good friend Illma Gore as they scour previous emails and exhausting drives for proof to submit in opposition to Manson. And there’s footage of Wooden campaigning to cross the Phoenix Act, a invoice to permit victims of sexual assault an prolonged statute of limitations to file prices. The act was handed and in October 2019 signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The movie is an genuine and courageous effort that works two-thirds of the time, when it’s not slowed down in useless animated interludes likening Wooden to “Alice in Wonderland.” Segments devoted to points along with her household, and father particularly, really feel overworked. Temper-setting scenes round the home, along with her son on a swing set and so forth, are doubtless meant to seize the dear moments of normalcy in her journey to heal and search accountability, however they really feel extra like filler. The movie may additionally use extra voices to fill out the image somewhat than relying so closely on Wooden’s household.
Probably the most highly effective half within the documentary arrives within the second half, when a gaggle that features Manson’s former girlfriends and a former male worker meet to help and validate each other’s experiences. It assuages the worry and rigidity that’s been tormenting Wooden all through the movie as a result of right here she is believed, and she or he’s not alone. By the movie’s finish, Wooden’s emotional journey coalesces round one second: publicly naming Warner as her abuser on Feb. 1, 2021. Shaking, she pushes “ship” on the social media publish and weeps.
‘Phoenix Rising’
The place: HBO
When: Half 1, 9 p.m. Tuesday; Half 2, 9 p.m. Wednesday
Ranking: TV-MA (could also be unsuitable for kids beneath the age of 17)
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