TIFF REVIEW: BY KURT MORRISON

SEPTEMBER 16, 2026

3 OUT OF 5 STARS

There was a perspective and way I watched films before becoming a father or husband, where I could stomach things a little more easily - an ability to create separation between the story being told, what I was visually experiencing on screen and what a real life scenario of such would look like.

But I've have found in recent years an inability to stomach certain things or topics on screen without it affecting me during and post watch. The first thing that came to mind was Ridley Scott's The Last Duel, and if you've seen the 2023 film, you know two scenes in particular that I am talking about.

So as I entered the theatre this Monday morning, understanding the topic of writer-director Beth de Araújo's Josephine, the weight and emotion of watching a film like Josephine cannot be understated, and folks, this one really stuck with me.

The film centers around Josephine, an 8 year old girl. During what appears to be an innocent outing to the park with her father (Channing Tatum), Josephine witnesses a man violently rape a woman. In the aftermath, she struggles to process what she has seen, while her parents (Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan) grapple with their daughter’s increasingly erratic and unpredictable behavior.

The film's pacing felt almost rollercoaster like because of how quickly we have to sit through the vicious assault on screen, which spirals instantaneous while Josephine looks on, leading to an unfathomable loss of innocence for poor Josephine and the PTSD that follows. Such expediation of childhood innocence is truly what stuck with me and will for anyone watching this. It's nightmare fuel.

The film hangs solely on Mason Reeves' incredible performance, and even with two Hollywood A Listers in Chan and Tatum (whom I'll discuss shortly), Reeves does everything expected of her by writer-director Araujo and elevates the material.

At times it is a quiet and fragile performance, while other times Reeves is able to turn on a sense of hypervigilance and anger that is rarely believable from a child actor. She truly anchors the film.

Technically speaking this movie has a lot going for it. The score by Mason Ross is absolutely haunting and really adds a level of uneasiness throughout the film, ESPECIALLY during Josephine's hallucinatory episodes, which are nerve shredding and perfectly executed by Araújo's DP Greta Zozula. Zozula and Araújo previously worked together on a film back in 2022 called Soft and Quiet, which I intend to check out this weekend. 

The real qualm of the film lies in the two other lead performances from Tatum and Chan. And I don't mean to sound like a villain here but Channings performance is light years ahead of Chans. Channing brings a serious brooding weight to his role as Damian - a father hellbent on saving his daughter from the fallout that is happening from this event but also to try and accelerate her survival skills and make her realize the world is a mean and scary place. 

Chan on the other hand just feels like she is given nothing to work with, which is why this is a script problem. Her role of Claire is one of obvious panic and empathy. But her empathy is aimed at the idea of Josephine's trauma, not at Josephine herself. When Claire learns what happened, she panics and wants to take Jo to a psychologist, but Jo doesn't understand what that means and runs off again. Wanting therapy is the "right" answer, but Claire never explains it in a way an eight-year-old could accept - again a script problem, not a Gemma problem.

Furthermore, Claire eventually tells Jo "It is your responsibility for you to fix your own pain." Whatever wisdom the line holds for adults, saying it to a traumatized eight-year-old puts the burden back on the child. It's arguably no gentler than Damien's sports-coach toughness, just quieter and meaner.

And perhaps that's why I couldn't connect with that character, because every decision she was making was the opposite of what I would do - affection wise, communication wise, pacing wise.

Josephine was a grueling watch because it inhabited so many fears that we as individuals or parents or partners have, and placing ourselves in any such role is unfathomable and heartbreaking. Of course, this is what leads to the film being memorable - not in a good way, and I mean that as a compliment. I've seen Fjord, Elsinore, a documentary about Medically assisted suicide, but none have stuck with me as much as Josephine has. I don't expect this to land with mainstream audiences well but the cast, its performances and release date do give me hope this makes waves during awards season.