AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Luke Buckmaster
@lukebuckmaster
Wednesday 17 May 2017
Litigation thrillers and courtroom dramas are not necessarily the same thing – and a movie encompassing both can do one better than the other.
Don’t Tell – debut director Tori Garrett’s well made, if heavy-handed movie about speaking out in the most challenging and degrading of circumstances – is also a reminder that films depicting real-life events are in just as much danger of indulging in caricature and ham-handed dialogue as anything from the realm of pure fiction.
Adapted from a non-fiction book by Queensland lawyer Stephen Roche, Don’t Tell recounts a landmark 2001 civil litigation case against the Anglican Church’s Toowoomba Preparatory School. In a cinematic context, one is tempted to peg it as a sort of Spotlight Down Under, given the obvious similarities in subject matter.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.