Lipstick movie review & film summary (1976)
Miss Hemingway plays, as she does in real life, a fashion model. In this case, she specializes in lipstick. She acts as a sort of surrogate mother for her little sister (played by her real-life little sister, Mariel) and one day the sister brings her music teacher to a modeling session. It appears that he has some musical compositions he'd like the famous model to hear.
They make an appointment for her place, the next day. She's in the shower when he arrives. He gets a glimpse of her, nude, in a mirror. She dresses in a slinky gown, listens to some of the music and then is interrupted by a telephone call from her lover. The teacher wanders about her apartment, sees signed photos from Paul Newman and Cary Grant and suchlike and goes berserk. He beats her, ties her up and rapes her. Then he leaves. He seems confident no jury will convict him, and he's right.
There's a witness: The little sister. But she thought that maybe her sister and her teacher were -- well, you know. In court, the defense makes Margaux look like a cross between a prostitute and a seductress. Sexy photos are admitted into evidence. Situations are looked at in two ways. The music teacher (very well played by Chris Sarandon), lies in his testimony: She was asking me for it, he says. Verdict: not guilty. Later on, in a fairly unconvincing coincidence, the younger sister and the music teacher meet, and another rape takes place. And this time Margaux, borrowing no doubt from her ancestral hunting skills, takes a rifle and goes looking for the teacher. In her second trial, for murder, she's found innocent, and there are all kinds of sanctimonious observations on the soundtrack.
But, hold on, why aren't we shown why a jury didn't believe her the first time, but would the second? Is murder by vigilante force considered an appropriate response to rape? Perhaps the simplistic ending is intended as a pat on the head for feminists. If it is, it's an insult. The movie itself is set up to exploit Margaux Hemingway's beauty, her nudity and her rape. If the movie were really concerned with attitudes toward rape, it would have lingered on the motives of the sick music teacher (never explored or even touched on) instead of on the more easily exploited details of sexual violence.
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