Warning: The references to sexual abuse detailed in this article could be triggering for people who have been victims of abuse.
Phoenix Rising begins quietly in Los Angeles in 2020, as Evan Rachel Wood and Ilma Gore rustle through papers and organize files on computers, with messy charts littering the walls around them. It’s a moment of art imitating life: The silence that punctuates this story is as loud as a scream, but much like the road to justice in situations of sexual violence, the storytelling itself is slow and painstaking as well.
