MovieChat Forums > Open Window Discussion > Too Real - Based on True Life of Mia Gol...

Too Real - Based on True Life of Mia Goldman

posted 17 years ago by osu_1996
3 replies | jump to latest

I just finished watching this on Showtime and was mesmerized by the storyline. To call the movie great, or fabulous, or wonderful, seems to demean the story itself. SO, I find myself not being able to use those adjectives that I otherwise would use for such a film. I was a bit dubious about the cast at first, worried that Cybil could not play such a role, but I was surprised indeed. The acting was so real. You forgot you were watching actors on a screen, but instead a part of the story.

When it was over, I was left with the thought, this must be a true story. I don't think someone who has never been accosted could have written such a story, full of emotion, and the attention to each detail. The scene with Izzy plugging the water faucet, it was such a great detail as to how the character would feel, how their senses would be overwrought.

And then the emotive calling of the family members as each, in their own way, feels the pain of the rape themselves, on behalf of the surviver. You really got a feeling for how such a crime affects more than just the surviver itself.

So, when I was done watching, I had to find out. Was this based on truth as I suspected, and I found that it is. Read about it here:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=17848

[–] broadway309 14 years ago

Thanks for posting that, I had no idea. The film really did seem very personal, but I didn't realize Mia was drawing from her own traumatic experience.

[–] KlutzyGirl 13 years ago

I'm only part way into the film and was bothered by one thing--in LA, a rape crisis counselor and a specially trained female police officer (and most likely a female doctor as well) would have been at the hospital, emotionally supporting her and convincing her to file a report or at least get a semen sample. Thank you for posting that link because now I know it happened in rural VA, where such help may not have been available in 1989.

[–] mikeflw1 7 years ago

...taking semen samples... ...where such help may not have been available in 1989.

As a bit more info here may help understand this, the very first court case to use DNA evidence was in 1992.

Prior to that point, the best help a semen sample could give was a non-match on blood type, (and possibly ethnic background), used to eliminate possible suspects in rape cases. It is worth noting that one of the common blood types accounts for 40% of the general population; if that type happens to match a semen sample, it leaves almost half of the population as possible suspects. The downside to that sort of comparison is how it typically used up (consumes) whatever sample material was available during the blood typing.

IF, you believe some of the police and detective shows, (and no, not the "entertainment" type shows, but the 'true detective' types), there has been at least one case solved with the extremely small DNA residue in the specimen evidence test tube that held the swab that was fully consumed in an old DNA test.
Modern DNA testing can use methods to replicate such extremely tiny DNA samples, and then subject the duplicated DNA to other testing.
In many ways, the old DNA testing versus the newest testing is something like comparing two 'automobiles'; the Ford Model T versus a military Humvee.

If you have recently read about the JonBenet Ramsey case, "touch DNA" testing was done on certain pieces of evidence, and tended to exonerate the little girl's family members. It showed DNA was present from an unknown male. The really bad news is explained in just how sensitive "touch DNA" analysis can be, including exposing DNA on fabric that may have come from the manufacturing of cloth and specific clothing articles. Not unlike latent fingerprint evidence, there is little or no way to determine the age of that evidence. A fingerprint at a murder scene could have been present from a previous tenant, or one of their guests, and be completely not connected to the murder.

In other words, the entertainment TV shows have contributed to the jury "CSI effect" which has led juries to expect good clear DNA matches as evidence in trials. In some cases, there is not such evidence that jury's expect, and lacking that evidence tends to add to the presumption of innocence of a suspect.