Listen up: Don't mess with Candace Cameron. I don't care how creepy her brother is, she's still DJ Tanner, and if you do anything to hurt her, especially in TV-Movie land, you will get your ass kicked by my remote control.
Be afraid.
It's a fact that Candace Cameron has made nearly a dozen TV-movies in her life. Which is not even remotely impressive if you stick her alongside Melissa Gilbert or Joanna Kerns. Still, she's done her fair share. And here at AJ, we've covered Camp Cucamonga, Kidz In The Wood, To Grandmother's House We Go and Nightscream in the past two years, but wait -- there's more! And here's where the "Don't mess with DJ" part comes in. Because I don't care how cute you were on Saved By The Bell, or how hot you became in later life, Mark-Paul Gosselaar... you stay away from DJ. Go date Kelly or Jessie or Lisa Turtle. Just keep your paws off the Tanners.
Wouldn't you know, Mark-Paul Gosselaar doesn't listen to this sage advice in She Cried No.
Candace Cameron plays Melissa, a freshmen who's excited to begin campus life at the university her dad attended and where her older brother is currently a senior. On her first day, she meets Scott (Gosselaar), a frat boy who enjoys taking one conquest after another. Scott thinks Melissa is hot.
Two weeks later, Melissa and her roommates are at a party when Scott gets Melissa drunk and takes her upstairs. He then proceeds to rape her. Afterwards, Melissa flees the party in tears.
She doesn't tell anyone. She's ashamed of what happened. She thinks she must be to blame. But life doesn't just go on. Melissa is constantly paranoid, her schoolwork suffers, and she sinks into a depression. Meanwhile, she sees Scott in class and around campus every day, and the sight of him makes her ill. Scott doesn't think he did anything wrong; he even goes so far as to tell Melissa's brother, Michael, that the two of them "hooked up," and that Melissa was totally into it.
Several months pass before Melissa is able to tell anyone what really happened. Finally, around Thanksgiving, she confides in her mother. Her family then has a conference, discussing what to do. Michael has trouble believing that it could have really been rape; maybe his sister was too drunk to know what even happened, maybe she had wanted to do it. He has a hard time with the idea that his frat brother, Scott, could have done this.
Melissa and her parents decide to go to the police. The police tell her that because she waited so long to report the crime, there's not much they can do -- there's just no evidence. So Melissa goes to the university, and they arrange a disciplinary hearing. It'll be Melissa's word against Scott's, but maybe things will work out. Now, because of this impending hearing, the whole school knows about what happened, and each of the people in Melissa's life is reacting a little differently. One of her roommates, Jordan, has been acting weird since the second week of school, and now acts like she doesn't care about anything or anyone. Another roommate, Kellie, doesn't believe that any girl could take part in a sexual act without wanting to. Poor little sheltered thing that she is. And most of the frat boys side with Scott, because a lot of them have done similar things to girls over the years. They don't think what he did was wrong, and even if it was -- so what? Everyone does it.
Unfortunately, Melissa doesn't get justice in the way she expects, but after learning that Scott has victimized at least one other woman, she discovers frat videos and photos that clearly implicate Scott as being a womanizing asshole. The videos also feature frat guys drinking and taking women upstairs while winking and making crude comments. There's even a photo of Melissa making her getaway with a ripped shirt on that infamous night, after Scott had attacked her. Melissa finds a way to broadcast a composite of these videos and photos to the entire campus, and it takes about thirty seconds for 98% of the campus to see who Scott really is.
The film provides an interesting look at a crime and its victims. The sympathy, of course, rests mostly with Melissa, but Scott is presented as a kid whose chauvanist father taught him his own version of "right" and "wrong" and obviously screwed him up. Even at the end of the movie, Scott doesn't understand that what he did was wrong, but when he is shunned by most of the other students, he starts to get a clue. Melissa becomes braver over the course of the movie, and her bravery inspires others -- not just Scott's other victim, but an additional silent victim as well.
