Private Violence

Private Violence makes painfully clear the emotional and legal hurdles battered women endure just to feel safe again in or outside the home.

Private Violence is extremely sad, but it has a lot of hope.

The obstacles against effectively protecting battered women and prosecuting their abusers are vividly illustrated in Private Violence.

A documentary is about storytelling and Private Violence is structured very much like a law-and-order procedural, so an investigation and a build-up to a trial that can't be featured on-screen is anti-climactic storytelling.

Though the film addresses some questions that remain a sticking point in helping abused women, it sheds little new light on them for viewers who've spent any time thinking about this upsettingly widespread phenomenon.