Scorsese is under appreciated for the ways that he understands the many modes and methods men implement to harm the women they deem as prey. In Cape Fear, Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is often a menace in plain sight, pushing the legal boundaries of trespassing and harassment to their absolute limits. But then, halfway through the film, is the theatre scene. Controversy aside, there are few sequences in cinema that come to mind as depicting the way an older man seduces a young woman with such dreadful specificity and accuracy. The shock value of Cady’s persona fades away, and what is revealed underneath is so much scarier: he’s kind of hot. It is hard to reckon with abusers being attractive and successfully seductive. We see his tactics work on her as they entice her, bring her in, and give way to something that resembles consent until it doesn’t. She resists his leap from verbal seduction to physical at first, before giving in and allowing him to penetrate her. Juliette Lewis’ performance in this moment is nothing short of phenomenal. Few actors could be so vulnerable on screen. And then, when she walks away, the facade of seduction dissipates and she is left with regret and trauma, her face riddled with it.

“I know about losing time.”

Unfortunately, that is also the moment when all nuance and maturity are thrown out the window to give way for shlock and awe. The second half of Cape Fear is only interested in homaging Hitchcock and De Palma with the subtly of a hammer to the head, and eschews any kind of meaningful resolution for the abuse that Cady inflicts upon that poor girl. This shortcoming is especially disappointing when the endings of New York, New York and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore are still in recent memory. In those films, Scorsese finds beautiful complexity in the ways women either embrace and exile violent men. In this, he doesn’t seem to care much about it at all by the time the credits roll.

★★★

Kenna Wong Ghaill