Pick of the Day: “Phoenix Rising”

During the rise of #MeToo in 2017, “Westworld” actress Evan Rachel Wood spoke out about being raped and abused. She reiterated those claims the following year in testimony before Congress supporting the passage of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights. She successfully lobbied on behalf of The Phoenix Act, legislation extending the statute of limitations for domestic violence cases in California that was signed into law in 2019. It wasn’t until February 2021 that Wood publicly named her abuser, Brian Warner, better known as Marilyn Manson. (Manson has denied her and other women’s accusations; early this month he filed a lawsuit against Wood, citing defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.)

“Phoenix Rising,” a two-part documentary directed and produced by Amy Berg (“Janis: Little Girl Blue”), follows Wood over several years as she becomes more involved in activism, fights for the passage of The Phoenix Act, processes her trauma, and debates coming forward with her allegations against Manson. Along the way, Wood reflects on her childhood, family, career, treatment in the press, and what Warner put her through. The doc is a damning account of how we as a culture have historically vilified young women who dare display their sexuality, and denied them empathy when they’ve been victimized. At the same time, “Phoenix Rising” is also empowering and optimistic: we’re seeing Wood unpacking her worst experiences, but we also bear witness as she decides to own her truth and stand up for herself and other Manson survivors.

As with other projects about sexual predators, such as “Allen v. Farrow” and “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” it’s hard to come away from “Phoenix Rising” without wondering, How did we not see this all along? Manson has made a career out of being provocative, from using Nazi imagery during concerts to trolling his fan’s Christian parents. But as Wood and Berg posit, his persona may not have been a persona at all. Archival footage and excerpts from Manson’s book trace the shock rocker’s history of misogyny and violent fantasies. Wood provides evidence from her time with Manson — photographs, video recordings, journal entries, personal testimony — that highlights his abusive behavior, rage, and white supremacist ideology. Perhaps Manson’s outrageous behavior and style just allowed him to hide is monstrosity in plain sight; maybe he’s actually, to quote Wood’s brother, “a wolf in wolf’s clothing.”

Wood displays immense courage in the doc as she attests, in detail, to the abuse, torture, and psychological manipulation she endured at the hands of Manson. She and the doc also make the case that — between aughts-era sexism, her struggles with feeling lonely and invisible as a kid, her relationship with her parents, and how she as a person was conflated with the Lolita-esque roles she played — the conditions were set for a perfect storm, which Manson took full advantage of. He saw a struggling young woman and an opportunity to groom her. And though Wood was a teenager when they first got involved, and Manson in his mid-30s, she was the one attacked in the tabloids.

If you’ve been paying attention to sexual abuse cases at all during the past four years, “Phoenix Rising” probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know about grooming, rape culture, or the systemic protection and support of shitty men. You will, however, learn more about Wood, Manson, and the importance of laws like The Phoenix Act. Most importantly, I believe, you’ll be pushed to think about how quick we are to dismiss women based on nothing — and excuse men despite overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing.

We can’t take back how we treated Wood in the mid-aughts, nor can we change what happened to her. But we can learn from our mistakes. When we see a young woman in a high-profile, seemingly unorthodox relationship, we can choose to offer her compassion instead of condemnation. If we see evidence of abuse, we can ask the victim if they are alright instead of doing nothing. Knowing what we know now, maybe we can prevent another young woman from going through what Wood survived.

Part 1 of “Phoenix Rising” premieres on HBO tonight, March 15, at 9 p.m. ET. Part 2 airs tomorrow at 9 p.m. ET. Both parts will be available on HBO Max beginning at 9 p.m. tonight.