According to the Acid Survivors Trust International website, the UK (where the film takes place) has one of the highest rates of recorded acid attacks in the world per capita. Other countries across Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa don’t necessarily fare a whole lot better. It’s not a particularly common phenomenon in the United States, which makes a film like Dirty God a rather insightful look into the effects an act like that can have on a victim. But the story isn’t just about that of an acid attack, it taps into the universal experience of how one copes with surviving domestic violence.
The woman at the center of Dirty God is Jade (Vicky Knight), who has recently been discharged from the hospital following an acid attack from her ex-boyfriend and father of her young daughter. The film follows her attempts at getting back to the grooves of a normal life, which naturally proves to be far more difficult than he anticipated. Her little girl Rae cries when she sees coming back home, having been taken care of by Jade’s mother, Lisa (Katherine Kelly), while she was in the hospital. She almost immediately goes clubbing with her best friend, Shami (Rebecca Stone), but it’s just not as fun as it used to be.
What’s notable is that the star of the picture, Vicky Knight, actually suffered burns on her body in a fire when she was eight-years-old back in 2003. This isn’t a case of an actor having makeup plastered all over her face. Having someone who has dealt firsthand with the experience of living with those scars and the effect that it can have on an individual and their mind lends a sense of authenticity to the film that isn’t afraid to go to weird, dark, and intimate places with the story and its lead character.
Jade as a character is really what makes the film as effective as it is. I love that she isn’t this flawless woman that invites pity. She’s crass, she makes some questionable parenting choices, her circle of friends aren’t the most mature, and she’s got quite the temper. At one point, she gets really pissed off at a neighbor and tips over a stroller…while a baby was still inside. In a lot of films, especially American ones, we seem to be afraid to make our protagonists flawed, especially when that protagonist is the victim of something terrible. We see tons of movies about revenge, but little about the very real, very messy process of dealing with that kind of trauma.
It’s a film that is all about how one has to come to terms with the fact that sometimes what you think you need to move on from something traumatic is ultimately not the right path, and trying to navigate the complications of of what you want versus what you need is a difficult yet necessary hurdle one has to overcome. Jade’s stubbornness can get the best of her a lot of times, but the film does a great job at putting you in her head, finding that empathy where a lesser filmmaker might resort to simplistic misery porn.
Dirty God may seem like a heavy watch, and much of it is. However, director, Sacha Polak, and her co-writer, Susie Farrell, know how to make the film feel alive, and how to add humor in places that are appropriate and sometimes unexpected. Vicky Knight tackles the role with total fearlessness, effortlessly tapping into the humanity of her character, warts and all. It’s a film that welcomes anger, complexity, frustration, and avoids any easy answers and generic, pandering, empty gestures of “bravery” and “strength” that we often throw to stories like this. That isn’t to say the film isn’t uplifting or hopeful, but the picture earns it by embracing the messy and complicated journey it takes to truly love ones self, to forge a path that is best for you, and truly heal.
Dirty God is now out in select theaters; it will hit VOD platforms on December 15th.