Helen Hunt Filmography Part 2: Child Bride of Short Creek
Diane Lane and Helen Hunt as absolute infants!
And I want to punch in the throat every person in this movie who makes them sad and threatens their innocence.
It is not easy to find most of the very early entries in the Helen Hunt film catalog. Child Bride of Short Creek is the earliest one that I could find. It’s streaming on Freevee, which you can access through Amazon Prime Video.
Note: This movie deals with polygamy, child sex abuse, rape, gang rape, child endangerment, child neglect, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse, and other forms of control and harm. The movie is not graphic or gratuitous in its portrayal, but these are essential themes of the movie and this review. If those topics are harmful to you, please proceed with awareness or skip this review.
The 1981 TV movie tells the story of a polygamist cult in Arizona in the 1950s. I was not expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised by this film.
The movie centers the lives and stories of the women who are the victims of the cult without being unnecessarily exploitative. Frequently stories about harm to women take a suspicious interest in portraying the harm done as explicitly as permissible and usually from the perspective of the perpetrator.
A very young Diane Lane plays the lead character Jessica Jacobs, a 15 year old girl who falls in love with returning war-hero Isaac King. Somehow it’s not entirely creepy that this 20+ year old man is pursuing a 15 year old girl because he is saving her from being married off to his dad.
<The appropriate response is: “blechgh”>
Jessica and her best friend Naomi (Helen Hunt) respond differently to the strictness of the cult and the prospect of being married to an older man. Jessica tries to conform to the expectations of her culture and feels deep loyalty to her family, especially her mother, who is one of three sister-wives.
Naomi strongly objects to the prospect of marrying an old man against her wishes. She dreams of running away and engages in small transgressions like kissing boys and reading National Geographic.
Out in the real world, the local authorities are collecting evidence and planning a raid on the community.
When Naomi tries to run away, she is picked up by a couple of local, non-cult boys, who try to gang rape her, but she is “saved” when President King shows up and takes her back to the community. She is then immediately married off to a really old man with multiple wives in order to “settle her down”.
Since we’re watching this movie for Helen Hunt, let’s talk about her best scenes. Jessica finds out that Naomi has been married off and comes to talk to her about it. Hunt's performance as she is confronted by her best friend with her new reality is understated and powerful. She’s not hysterical, but her face is a well of hate and fury and defeat and disgust and shame and rage.
Seriously, who hurt this baby? I’m about to cut some bastards.
You can watch some clips on YouTube here: Child Bride of Short Creek (1981) check out 55:00 and 1:04:00
As Jessica’s marriage to President King approaches, Isaac convinces her to run away with him. She asks Naomi to come with her, but she tells Jessica that she’s pregnant now and can’t leave. This scene (1:16:40) straight up broke my heart, which I was not expecting from a 1981 made for TV movie.
Naomi telling Jessica she can’t leave because she’s having a baby and realizing she’s trapped.
After this announcement there are no further scenes with Naomi. While narratively it would have been nice to wrap up both girls’ stories, it’s also sadly realistic that Naomi is lost after this point.
Jessica and Isaac make it to the nearby town, but as they’re getting ready to board the bus and get away, they realize that the raid on the compound is about to happen. Jessica is unable to leave her family behind, and returns to face the raid with her family. The men are arrested and taken away and the women and children are shuffled through various aid and housing situations.
The movie ends two and a half years after the raid, when the men are released on parole and all the women go back to them. Just as they’re about to board the bus back to the compound, Isaac shows up and Jessica stays with him.
This is a happy ending for Jessica, but less so for all the women and children who return to the abusive and controlling life they had before.
It would be nice to think that this sort of situation is a thing of the past or only happens in rare cult situations. However, in the United States, there are remarkably few protections to keep children from being married off.
Only seven states completely ban child marriage–Delaware, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.
Only nine states ban a person over the age of 21 from marrying a minor.
Most states allow children between the age of 15-17 to marry with some combination of parental and/or judicial approval.
Many states have no minimum age at which a child can be married.
Hopefully I don’t have to explain why this is a problem. Child marriage essentially legalizes rape, and opens the door to many other types of abuse.
This is not a political blog, by any means, but I don’t consider this a political issue, or at least not a partisan one.
Regardless of where you find yourself on the Left/Right, D/R spectrum, if you care about preventing multiple forms of child abuse and domestic abuse, child marriage should be a top priority.
Please consider voicing your concern with your State legislature as most marriage laws are determined on a state by state basis.
You can also contact your Federal representatives and request a national ban on child marriage.
Find all your representatives here.
