The Girl, based on Samantha Geimer’s memoir, will revisit ‘one of Hollywood’s most notorious scandals through the eyes of the person most misrepresented by it’
A new movie will explore the notorious Roman Polanski statutory rape scandal from the perspective of the 13-year-old girl, Samantha Geimer.
The Girl, based on Geimer’s 2013 memoir The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski, will trace her time in the famous director’s orbit in the 1970s, her experience being subjected to sexual assault and the media maelstrom that followed after Polanski, then 43, was arrested in 1977 on charges of statutory rape and lewd and lascivious act with a child.
Polanski, the acclaimed director of such films as Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, admitted to statutory rape in a plea bargain to avoid more serious charges, but fled to France the following year after serving 42 days in jail. He has been a fugitive from the US ever since.
The film Lilya 4-ever was both informational and moving for me, about a young Slavic woman who wanted to escape the misery of her squalid surroundings, but in trying to break out, fell in to a web of sex-slave traffickers.
The Polanski stuff was pretty much before my time, so I’d similarly like to see a movie about this woman’s life.