The Rapture 1991 Spoiler alerts.

 

For a big part of its running time Michael Tolkin’s “The Rapture” which he wrote and directed is a compelling and fierce look at a young woman’s double face life of a boring day job of giving out phone number information to a night life of raw swinging  sexual pursuits with a male friend. Set in L.A. they go after couples they pick up in bars and one night the woman played well by Mimi Rogers has an awakening to her spiritual needs throws her bed mate out and soon joins a religious cult of born again worshipers led by a young African American boy who warns that the apocalypse is coming. This where the divide happens, both in the film and in my enjoyment of it. There is not much reason given to Roger’s characters deep change from a fast sexual road to a religious one and raises more questions than it answers. Was it the two mormon like young men who knock on her door one morning to bring her the truth? Was it her overhearing some co-workers talking about “The Boy” or was it just her disgust over her empty life. Isn’t it possible to have a rich spiritual life and also a rich sexual life both at the same time? It’s at this point that the “Rapture” becomes The Rupture and my own beliefs about this interesting but failed film come to a screeching halt. Much is left unsaid and understated, a quick flash forward and now Mimi is married with a young child to David Duchovny a once wild sex partner of hers who is now a button down fellow follower of her religious cult and a conservative office manager who meets a tragic end one afternoon when a fired employer returns for retribution. Mimi makes a big change in her and her child’s life and take off for the desert where she thinks she will be safe from the coming apocalypse and commits a terrible unspeakable crime that is gut retching. The film concludes with some very poorly done special affects that can probably be blamed because of  the low budget, but is laughable and damaging never the less. The cast is fine, especially the little seen and under used Mimi Rogers and the then unknown David Duchovny as her boy toy and future film husband. Spiritual and religious topics and themes are very rarely untaken in Hollywood movies unless they are sweet films about angels and happy priests who do good things and also sing, so this is a welcomed take on these subjects even though it is filled with flaws but I can easily say see this one.