The film is set in the 1970s and it starts off in front of a truck stop where Vicki is getting roughed up by Skid, her narcissistic pimp. Seeing this physical exchange taking place, Charles, who had been working at the truck stop, comes outside with a bat telling Skid to leave her alone. Skid eventually drives off not taking Charles seriously due to his physical condition.
Charles is a 17-year-old high school student who gets constantly bullied because of his physical disability, but finds solace in taking photographs. One day at school Charles's teacher, Mr. Sullivan, announces that a photography contest would be taking place at the school. Intrigued, Charles takes a flyer.
Charles lives at home with his supportive father, Eric, who is dying. Back at the truck stop, Charles works for a witty middle-aged woman named, Peg, who absolutely adores and encourages him.
Vicki is an 18-year-old prostitute who lives in a motel room near the truck stop. Vicki relentlessly puts up with her crazy women-hating pimp, Skid, who always wants his cut of the money she makes for hooking.
Meanwhile, Vicki keeps on coming into the truck stop in between her sessions with various truck drivers, making small talk with Charles.
Charles is thinking about entering the photography contest but he doesn't know what his theme will be.
During one of his shifts Vicki comes in and notices Charles contest flyer and asks him if he is going to enter. Charles expresses that he wants to take photos of the California lighthouses, but that he would need someone to drive him, on account of his physical disability. Vicki then offers to drive Charles around so that he could take pictures of the different lighthouses for his contest.
At the first lighthouse Charles tells Vicki that his mother abandoned him when he was young and that the camera he was using to take the photos belonged to his brother, Kevin, who was killed in Vietnam. To which, Vicki revealed that her father was dead and that her mother kicked her out of the house.
At the second lighthouse Vicki reveals to Charles that her mother kicked her out the house because she thought that Vicki was messing around with one of her boyfriends and that once she was on her own she met Skid. Seeing that Charles and Vicki were getting closer, Peg invites her out to go dancing with her, Charles and a couple of her girlfriends, Vicki agrees. During their night out Vicki persuades Charles to slow dance with her and the two share a kiss.
Before Vicki and Charles go to the third lighthouse, Charles persuades Vicki to go visit her family, but once they arrive Vicki is greeted with a mixed reception by her sisters, Sharon and Kate.
Then, one day on his way to work, Charles bumps into Skid, Vicki's psychotic pimp, who starts having a conversation with Charles about his disdain towards women, rooted in the fact that he had a bad mother.
At the fourth lighthouse Vicki expresses to Charles how much she appreciates him and that she'll miss going to lighthouses with him.
Vicki and Charles stop by Vicki's family house for another visit. While looking through old photos of one another, Kate tells Vicki that she is nothing but a whore at which Vicki walks out of the house. Still outside her family's home, and crying, Vicki becomes angry with Charles for persuading her to see her family again and telling him that the only reason she hung out with him was because she felt sorry for him. Days go by, and Vicki stops talking to Charles and stays away from the truck stop. Meanwhile, Charles finally hands in his collection of photos for the contest to which he titles, "Beacon of Light".
On his way home from school Charles runs into neighborhood bullies, who push him down and break his camera.
While at work, Skid, who is showing symptoms of paranoia, asks Charles if he has seen Vicki lately, Charles tells Skid that he hasn't seen Vicki in a while, Skid leaves.
Back at home, Charles and his dying father are sitting outside their home, during which time Charles's father tells him how much he loves him and that he is proud of the man he has become. Charles's father passes away a few moments later.
After the funeral, Peg, seeing how Charles was under duress about his father passing away, tells him that she'll always be there for him. Charles ends up placing third in the photography contest. Skid eventually ends up tracking down Vicki and waits for her in her motel room until she arrives. Once Vicki arrives, she asks Skid to leave and tells him that she never stole from him. Skid then throws a stack of money, that Vicki was trying to hide from him, in her face. Skid punches Vicki and pins her down onto the bed.
Charles arrives suddenly and tells Skid to stop hurting Vicki. Skid and Charles get into a physical altercation, at which point Vicki grabs her gun and shoots Skid. The film ends with Charles and Vicki saying goodbye to one another and Vicki driving off down the road while Charles takes picture of her leaving the truck stop.
On February 17, 2015, the first theatrical trailer was released for the film.[5]Safelight had its world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival on April 17, 2015,[6] and screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 25, 2015.[7] On June 4, 2015, it was announced ARC Entertainment had acquired distribution rights to the film and set a date for a limited release and video on demand release of July 17, 2015.[1]
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 0% based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 3.3/10.[8] On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 26 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[9]The Hollywood Reporter stated that in the film "a single dramatic cliche is missed"[10] while Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave it a half star, criticizing everything about the film.[11]
Related Research Articles
Human Desire is a 1954 American film noir drama starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford directed by Fritz Lang. It is loosely based on Émile Zola's 1890 novel La Bête humaine. The story had been filmed twice before: La Bête humaine (1938), directed by Jean Renoir, and Die Bestie im Menschen, starring Ilka Grüning (1920).
Prehysteria! is a series of three family monster comedy films made in the early to mid-1990s about the adventures of five miniature baby dinosaurs named after famous pop musicians. The dinosaurs were Elvis, a male Tyrannosaurus, Paula, a female Brachiosaurus, Jagger, a male Stegosaurus, Hammer, a male Chasmosaurus, and Madonna, a female Geosternbergia. The films were made by Moonbeam Entertainment, the family-oriented sub-brand of B-movie producer Charles Band's Full Moon Entertainment. Richard Band, Michael Bishop, and Fuzzbee Morse composed the music for the films.
Evan Thomas Peters is an American actor. He made his acting debut in the 2004 drama film Clipping Adam and starred in the ABC science fiction series Invasion from 2005 to 2006.
FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue is a 1998 American animated fantasy adventure film, a direct-to-video sequel to FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992). Produced by Wild Brain Productions and distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment through the CBS/Fox Video Label, the film was directed by Phil Robinson and Dave Marshall, and written by Chris Fink and Richard Tulloch. None of the original actors reprise their roles, the film features a new voice cast, including Laura Erlich, Harry Joseph, Gary Martin, Matt K. Miller, Digory Oaks, and Westin Peace. It received a primarily negative response from critics and audiences.
Coast to Coast is a 1980 American romantic comedy film starring Dyan Cannon and Robert Blake, directed by Joseph Sargent. The screenplay was written by Stanley Weiser. The original score was composed by Charles Bernstein. The film was shot in Stockton, California. It was Blake's first film in six years and first since his popular TV series, Baretta left the airwaves.
Juno Temple is an English actress. She is known for her roles in the comedy series Ted Lasso (2020–2023) and in the fifth season of the crime drama series Fargo (2023–2024). She earned Primetime Emmy Award nominations for both as well as a Golden Globe Award nomination for the latter. She also portrayed Teddy Payne in the superhero film Venom: The Last Dance (2024).
Sadak is a 1991 Indian Hindi-language romantic action thriller film directed by Mahesh Bhatt. It stars Sanjay Dutt and Pooja Bhatt. The film is one of the highest-grossing movies of the year 1991. It is an unofficial remake of 1976 American film Taxi Driver. This film was remade in Tamil as Appu (2000). A sequel, Sadak 2, was released on 28 August 2020 on Disney+ Hotstar.
Emma Jackson is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Home and Away, played by Dannii Minogue. She made her first appearance during the episode broadcast on 22 September 1989. She departed on 22 August 1990. Emma was described as a teen punk and a tomboy.
The Phantom Light is a 1935 British crime film, a low-budget "quota quickie" directed by Michael Powell and starring Binnie Hale, Gordon Harker, Donald Calthrop, Milton Rosmer and Ian Hunter. The screenplay concerns criminals who try to scare a new chief lighthouse keeper on the Welsh coast, in an attempt to distract him from their scheme.
Stunts, also released as The Deadly Game, is a 1977 American adventure thriller film set in the world of movie stunt performers directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Robert Forster, Fiona Lewis and Ray Sharkey. The first film produced by New Line Cinema, Stunts was part of a late 1970s/early 1980s cycle of stunt performer films that included stunt man-turned-director Hal Needham's Hooper (1978) and Richard Rush's The Stunt Man (1980).
Stop Press Girl is a 1949 British fantasy comedy film directed by Michael Barry and starring Sally Ann Howes, Gordon Jackson, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne; the latter two appearing in several different roles in the film. It marked an early screen appearance by Kenneth More, who later co-starred with Howes in The Admirable Crichton (1957).
Dirty Girl is a 2010 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Abe Sylvia. It stars Juno Temple, Milla Jovovich, William H. Macy, Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, and Jeremy Dozier. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010, and received a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 7, 2011, by The Weinstein Company.
Send for Paul Temple is a 1946 British crime film directed by John Argyle and starring Anthony Hulme, Joy Shelton and Tamara Desni. Paul Temple is called in by Scotland Yard after a major diamond theft. It was the first of four film adaptations of the BBC's Paul Temple radio serials, with John Bentley taking over the lead role in future installments.
Intent to Kill is a 1992 action, independent and thriller film directed by Charles T. Kanganis. The film is about drug trafficking, prostitution and police activity. Intent to Kill is rated NC-17 by the United States' Motion Picture Association of America, the reason being extreme violence. This was the first motion picture that received the MPAA NC-17 rating because of violence rather than sexual content.
Far from the Madding Crowd is a 2015 British romantic drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Tom Sturridge, Michael Sheen, and Juno Temple. An adaptation by David Nicholls of the 1874 novel Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, it is the fourth film adaptation of the novel.
Dear Evan Hansen is a stage musical with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and a book by Steven Levenson. The musical follows Evan Hansen, a high school senior with social anxiety, "who invents an important role for himself in a tragedy that he did not earn".
"Flicker" is the seventh episode of the fifth season of the anthology television series American Horror Story. It aired on November 18, 2015, on the cable network FX. This episode was written by Crystal Liu and directed by Michael Goi.
The Pack is a 2015 Australian natural horror film that was directed by Nick Robertson, based on a script by Evan Randall Green. The film had its world premiere on 5 August 2015 at the Fantasy Film Festival and centers on a young Australian family who are terrorized by a pack of wild dogs. Despite the title and story, the film is not a remake of the 1977 film of the same name.
Peter Maximoff is a fictional character appearing in 20th Century Fox's X-Men film series, portrayed by Evan Peters and based on the Marvel Comics character Quicksilver, a mutant with the ability to move at superhuman speed. The character appeared in the films X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), and Dark Phoenix (2019), and had a cameo appearance in Deadpool 2 (2018). The character was reprised in Marvel Studios Television’s series Wandavision (2021) and Agatha All Along (2024).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
