Silenced review: Brittany Higgins & Amber Heard feature in Selina Miles’ new film

This review references sexual violence and self-harm.

#MeToo was meant to change everything, as women across the world spoke up, many for the first time, about the devastating sexual harassment and assault they had experienced at the hands of men. But as Silenced, the opening documentary of the Sydney Film Festival makes clear, the pushback was brutal.

Cases of defamation soared in its wake, subjecting brave women to often astonishingly vitriolic legal action against them, harrowing appearances in court and ridicule, or much worse, from the court of public opinion, including on social media.

Twenty years after activist Tarana Burke kickstarted #MeToo, the statistics remain startling. More than one in five Australian women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. Tragically, they are far more likely to be subjected to this and other violent acts by someone they know. Horrifically, there are fewer than 10 days between one woman being murdered by her partner and another.

For those who survive, the aftermath can be devastating, reshaping lives in ways that can be extremely difficult to navigate. Sometimes, it’s too much to bear.

When women do trust in the blindfolded Lady Justice, with her sword raised aloft in one hand and perfectly balanced scales in the other, the results do not tip in their favour. Only around 15% of cases brought forward make it to court, with fewer than that successful. It’s hardly surprising, then, that the vast majority of incidences go unreported.

Inside the legal battles

Mighty human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, the central figure of Selina Miles’ bracing documentary, has thrown her considerable intellectual weight into the fight. Based in London at the renowned Doughty Street Chambers, she’s best known to many as a leading figure in the defence of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. She is also dedicated to supporting women who speak up, including film star Amber Heard.

Silenced allows behind-the-scenes insights into Heard’s reluctant support of The Sun newspaper’s defence against defamation proceedings brought by ex-partner, Johnny Depp. They were running a ‘Truth’ defence which meant they had to prove, beyond reasonable doubt that she had experienced abuse at his hands. Depp’s lawsuit was dismissed, delivering Heard and Robinson a remarkable (and too rare) win.

Sadly, the film also shows how badly the stateside case, also brought by Depp, went, resulting in Heard having to pay him compensation.

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The cost of speaking out

Much of Miles’ film focus on how, where and why cases are brought, and the staggering cost of re-prosecuting your trauma under cross-examination over their version of events. Perhaps the most upsetting stuff in Silenced is when other women scream hideous obscenities at her.

Abuse also experienced by former political aide Brittany Higgins. It’s devastating to rewatch footage of a clearly inebriated Brittany Higgins walking into Parliament House shoeless. And to hear from her that if this can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

Higgins’ contributions are heart breaking, going right to the devasting effect of undergoing not one, but many criminal and civil cases, pushing her almost to the brink.

Again, for all the horror she has had to face, one of the most ghoulish moments in Silenced comes when a woman journalist, her face set in a ghoulish rictus of a smile, tries to act all normal when she’s confronted after being caught stalking Higgins and her partner outside the home they retreated to in rural France.

There is catharsis in a beautiful moment when Higgins and Heard meet and hold each other tight.

Remarkable determination

Colombian journalist Catalina Ruiz-Navarro, writing for Volcanica magazine, is also remarkable. She and her reporters tenaciously constructed a case against an allegedly abusive filmmaker who then sued when they published their rigorously backed-up feature.

She faced imprisonment and bankruptcy in standing her ground, but was supported, pro bono, by another valiant lawyer. Many women have no access to such support.

Robinson did. Her steely and good-humoured grandmother is the ultimate hero of Miles’ magnificently hopeful documentary.

A survivor of domestic abuse who walked away from her damaged husband and raised a kid solo, back when it was very much not the done thing, she went on to work in a women’s refuge helping others in her situation. Such were the horrors she encountered there that she endured two nervous breakdowns, but continues the fight today. 

As she says, it’s always one step forward, two back, but everything snaps back to the same. Something has to give.

Robinson, Higgins, Heard, Ruiz-Navarro, Miles and so many more stand tall beside her. We can but hope that the future will be brighter for the women that follow.

Silenced plays at the Ritz Cinemas, Randwick on 6 June as part of Sydney Film Festival. (The 13 June session is sold out.)

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