The Rapture (film)

The Rapture
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Michael Tolkin
Produced by	Karen A Koch Nancy Tenenbaum Nick Wechsler Laurie Parker (executive producer)
Written by	Michael Tolkin
Starring	Mimi Rogers David Duchovny Will Patton Darwyn Carson
Music by	Thomas Newman
Cinematography	Bojan Bazelli
Editing by	Suzanne Fenn
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	September 6, 1991
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Rapture is a 1991 psychological/religious drama film starring Mimi Rogers, David Duchovny, Darwyn Carson, Patrick Bauchau, Marvin Elkins, Will Patton, and Stephanie Menuez; directed by Michael Tolkin; rated R; 100 minutes long; and produced by New Line Cinema.

Cast

• Mimi Rogers... Sharon
• David Duchovny... Randy
• Darwyn Carson... Maggie
• Patrick Bauchau... Vic
• Will Patton... Deputy Foster
• Stephanie Menuez... Diana
• Marvin Elkins... Bartender

Plot summary

The film tells the story of Sharon (Rogers), a young Los Angeles woman who engages in a swinging, libidinous lifestyle with her male partner. She comes into contact with a sect that advises her that a true Rapture is imminent. In time, she comes to accept this belief herself and becomes a born-again Christian. She begins a new, pious lifestyle, eventually marrying and having a daughter. When her husband Randy (Duchovny) is killed in a senseless murder, however, she begins to question the benevolence of God. She believes she must wait in the desert for the coming of the Rapture but eventually loses patience. At her daughter's urging, she decides to hasten her and her daughter's ascendance to heaven. She kills her daughter with a gunshot, but is unable to take her own life afterwards, afraid she'll be condemned as a suicide. She confesses to what she had done to a police officer who had been watching her and is arrested and imprisoned.

Until this point, the film appears to be a story about a born-again cultist whose beliefs eventually lead to murder, but, in a twist ending, the Rapture does indeed arrive. While Sharon is sitting in her prison cell, awaiting trial, a loud trumpet blows that is heard all over the world, signaling the start of the Rapture. After Sharon disappears and is taken to a purgatory-like landscape, she still refuses to renounce her anger at God for His cruelty. Her young daughter begs her to accept God back into her heart so she can join her husband and daughter in Heaven, but Sharon declines, preferring to remain in the purgatory-like landscape for eternity.

External links

• The Rapture at the Internet Movie Database
• The Rapture at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Rapture at Box Office Mojo
• The Rapture at AllRovi