The truth is in the footage… REWIND shows us the scourge of child abuse and the generations upon generations it spans. Courtesy of FilmRise.“Child sexual abuse is the vile gift that keeps on giving.”
This is a line from REWIND that sums up child abuse perfectly: a “vile” gift that keeps on giving. It spreads like a disease, like pathogens from one host to the next. Throughout the past few years, especially since the Me Too movement, the topic of child abuse has been examined and discussed more seriously in societies, but there’s still work to be done. There are still people who can’t understand how abuse just “happens.” The questions are always the same:
“But why did the child let the abuse go on? Why didn’t they stop?”
“If something happened to the child, why didn’t the parents do anything?”
“Was this really abuse? Or was the alleged abuser just showing love in an inappropriate way and this has been blown completely out of proportion?”
Oy vey. I should warn you that this week’s blog post is a VERY sensitive and triggering one, so feel free to skip it if it’s too much. I was afraid to write about this film, but it deserves to be seen. It deserves to have been made. REWIND is one of the most daring, shocking, absolutely abysmal true stories of child abuse I’ve ever witnessed in a movie. Every frame of this film punches you in the gut and reminds you of the shame of humanity.
I’ve seen plenty of documentaries about child abuse and learned a lot from them, but REWIND expanded my knowledge even more, much to my painful endurance. A chill went up my spine the entire duration of this film. REWIND takes a dreadfully uncomfortable topic and does so with significant bravery. It is BEYOND comprehension what the director and star of this film, Sasha Joseph Neulinger, went through. To acknowledge the strength it took him to relive these memories in a film is supremely courageous. Kol hakavod to this man, as well as to the rest of his family who had to experience the same pain. Picture yourself as Sasha for moment. What was it like to film a feature film about you being abused as a child? Easy? I highly doubt it.
It kills me to say that Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media almost showed REWIND back in 2020 but didn’t. I remember vividly watching and discussing this film with the Screening Committee. The reaction was unanimous: this was a tough film to sit through, but to not show it would be unforgivable. The film ended up getting a digital release that same year, so it did not make it into the festival. I wasn’t surprised, however, that REWIND became such an underrated and critically acclaimed hit. This is harrowing, powerful filmmaking. It’s such a shame that a stupid pandemic had to shelve it right to our computer screens and not the movie theaters where it should have been seen. This was the second time I watched REWIND, and although it’s still a hard one to even blink in the direction of without cringing, I’m so glad I did. Stories like Sasha’s are happening every day all around us. That’s what makes it all the more terrifying.
Movies and shows like Leaving Neverland and Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich have taken a magnifying glass to the root causes of child abuse. Children are just kids. If something bad happens to them, they don’t have the words or capabilities to express their pain. We also know that a lot of child abusers and sex offenders end up confessing that they too were abused as children, hence the line at the top of this blog post; a “vile gift” that keeps on giving. We think we’ve seen and heard it all, but we have never heard about the story of the Nevison family.
The Nevisons were your typical, everyday Jewish American family living in the suburban town of Rosemont, PA. Jacqui, the matriarch of the family, was living in Philadelphia as a graphic designer when she met Henry, an eccentric man who loved his video camera. Her husband recorded everything, from family gatherings to silly activities his children were doing in the backyard with their friends. Sasha, the son and director of the film, makes REWIND an almost total collection of family footage only. On the outside surface, his family seemed normal, but behind closed doors, something unimaginable took place. Look closely at the shots of little Sasha at the dinner table or at his bar mitzvah. Look closely at his younger sister, Bekah. Look at the strange, almost melancholy look Henry has when he walks by the frame. And most of all, look at Sasha’s uncle…
The lead-up to the revelation of the abuse Sasha endured isn’t done in a sensational way. Early on into the film, Sasha, now a grown man, just casually reminisces with his mother about the times he was molested by his uncle Larry, one of his father’s brothers. It’s absolutely depraved, just like any allegation. Even more gut-wrenching is the shame both people feel towards one another. Sasha asks his mother how she didn’t know this abuse was happening. Jacqui, ashamed but understanding, responds that she didn’t know because this was uncle Larry, the great, big, charismatic, goofball uncle that Sasha knew and loved.
This is a common occurrence amongst child abuse survivors. The perpetrator is most likely a family member or close friend. REWIND, however, takes this commonality ten times further. Sasha wasn’t the only one abused by uncle Larry. In addition, uncle Larry wasn’t the only one to abuse Sasha. I can’t even type into words the history of the abuse, but it spans generations. GENERATIONS. What happened? HOW could this happen? WHY did this happen to these people? It is truly unbelievable.
I won’t give away any more spoilers, and I hope this review hasn’t discouraged you from wishing to see it. This is dark material, and REWIND made me FURIOUS. What angers me is not just how long this abuse went on for but how indifferent so many individuals – people who were supposed to help – were when they heard of these allegations. Take, for instance, the moment Jacqui noticed an abrasion on her child’s private parts and took him to the doctor. What was the doctor’s response?
“You don’t want to open that door…” he said.
In other words, “let’s not go there” because if your son is, in fact, being molested, it would cause too much trouble for the family with lawsuits and trying to get the perpetrator to jail. A. DOCTOR. SAID. THAT. How infuriating. How unforgivable. To make matters worse, there is even a synagogue in this film, an organization meant to keep its congregants welcome and safe, who pretty much turned a blind eye to Sasha’s claims.
REWIND is Neulinger’s first feature film, and he’s already mastered the craft of filmmaking. There are ingenious moments where he juxtaposes an eerie score with increasingly disturbing footage of himself as a child lashing out at his sister and parents, emotionally reacting to the pain he doesn’t know how to express in words. Even more disturbing are the drawings he shows on camera that he did for his child psychologist, drawings of what his uncle used to do to him. I have the chills just thinking about it. No one should EVER have to endure what Sasha and his family went through.
There is, however, a silver lining to REWIND, and that is that Sasha survived. As a child, the more the defense team constantly tried to gaslight Sasha as a “confused” kid making up allegations the more he never stopped speaking out. He never ran away or lied out of panic. He can’t change the past, but he can move forward and vow that this never happens to anyone in the world. REWIND is a wake-up call that there’s still work to be done. May we all help our children and loved ones. May we all reach out to them when we think something is wrong.
REWIND is now available to stream on Tubi.