In California v McMartin, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history, the owner and employees of a daycare facility in Manhattan Beach were falsely accused of sexually abusing children. An alcoholic wife estranged from her husband brought the accusation in 1983, which an attorney in the District Attorney's office used, hoping to propel her career into the limelight, and a media frenzy ensued until all the defendants were exonerated by 1990. Pretty Persuasion, directed by Marcos Siega, follows the progress of a case of sexual molestation brought by three fifteen-year-old high school girls against Percy Anderson (played by Ron Livingston), a drama and English teacher at a mythical Roxbury Academy, a private school in Beverly Hills. There are some unmistakable parallels between Pretty Persuasion and the McMartin case, which was made into a film entitled Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995). Pretty Persuasion involves some flashbacks, as if to inform filmviewers of certain events that make sense of testimony in a brief courtroom drama, but otherwise follows a linear path that resembles a before-after experiment. Students at the high school come from rich Republican families, as one line in the film claims that rich Democrats would prefer to send their children to public school to mingle with the less affluent. However, the three girl accusers have problems at home. Kimberly Joyce (played by Evan Rachel Wood) and Britanny (played by Elisabeth Harnois) are ignored by their parents, not only because of conflicts that lead to their separation but also because they focus on making money to the exclusion of good parenting; as a result, they seek their identities through school achievements and boyfriends. Randa Azzouni (played by Adi Schnal) is a Palestinian whose father (played by Navid Negahban) insists on laying down the rules for the family. Meanwhile, the accused teacher has problems with his wife and tries to hide his attraction to the pretty girls. What angers the spoiled girls is the way in which Anderson metes out discipline. After Kimberly makes an anti-Semitic remark in public, the school principal insists that Anderson remove her from the title role in a forthcoming production of The Diary of Anne Frank. Kimberly also talks in class and is forced to recite a letter of apology during an hour of after-school detention. Randa is criticized for having a poor grasp of English composition. Anderson asks Brittany to audition for the Anne Frank part by doing something private on stage in a drama class; interpreting the request as something sexual, she runs out of the auditorium, feeling humiliated. After self-centered Lesbian television news reporter Emily Klein (played by Jane Krakowski) decides on a feature story about Roxbury, Kimberly develops an elaborate plot that is explained much later in the film in an effort to gain notoriety as an up-and-coming actress as well as to get even with Brittany for stealing her boyfriend. Kimberly's plot, to encourage Brittany and Randa to make up a charge of sexual harassment against Anderson, later thickens into something more complex. Lacking funds to hire a good lawyer, Anderson accepts the pro bono serves of a fellow teacher who happens to have been admitted to the bar, but he is losing the case when another lawyer unexpectedly decides to take the case, which is then quickly dismissed when Brittany confesses the truth on the witness stand. Pretty Persuasion begins as a satire on teenage sexuality, but the laughter soon changes into a variation on the theme of Mean Girls (2004) which demonstrates that the media do not accept the principle of the presumption of innocence, children pay a heavy price when rich parents neglect or try to control them, rich parents ultimately suffer the consequences of their own narcissism, sexual behavior in the United States is sometimes obsessive, and that false accusations hurt everyone. MH
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