Each year, one in three American women experience domestic violence in their intimate partnerships. Within a patriarchal and sexist society, many women have endured this type of violence silently, pressing on and covering their pain and injuries in fear of further escalating the situation with their abusers. Though these stories have been brought to life in movies and TV series prior to the #MeToo movement, we are beginning to see the women at the center of these stories in a new light in the last several years.
For filmmaker Jaret Martino, showcasing his mother's story has never been more important. Based on his late mother, DonnaMarie Martino, Donna: Stronger Than Pretty is an absorbing and inspiring film about a woman who refused to let the entrapments of sexism, an abusive marriage, or her perceived baggage get in the way of her dreams.
Often, films centered on domestic abuse open with women in the middle of their abusive relationship, trying to determine the best way to navigate them or find their way out. However, Martino starts from the beginning allowing Donna (Kate Amundsen) to flourish and expand on the screen while enabling the audience to connect with her across the decades and before the abuse begins. Stronger Than Pretty opens in the 1960s. The audience meets a pre-teen Donna, who is clinging on to her dreams of college as her parents' marriage crumbles around her.
As well all know, life has a way of upending our personal plans. We meet Donna once again in the late '70s as a young single mom. Her dreams have been deferred as she tries to balance the responsibilities of motherhood with her desire to be young and carefree. Therefore, when the handsome and charismatic Nick (Anthony Ficco) comes strolling into her life, it seems like fate.
By unpacking the slow burn of Donna and Nick's relationship, as well as Nick's initial reverence toward Donna, Martino showcases how abusers gaslight, love bomb and manipulate their partners into feeling safe and comfortable. It's not until after they've eloped that Nick's violate and sinister side comes out through violence and financial abuse. As the years press forward, Donna's desire to get out of her marriage becomes front and center. Amid everything, she never cowers and stands resilient, examining her choices while striving for a better life for herself and her kid even when things appear helpless.
While Martino grounds the film in various decades, carefully crafting the costuming and the settings, Amundsen never ages, forcing the audience to suspend just a bit of belief. However, the strong acting, tone, and pacing of the narrative aid in an engaging plot as the filmmaker honors his mother and other strong women like her as well as the loved ones and strangers who do their best to support and anchor these women.
