'Window': a view of loss, love, and survival

"Sometimes adversity has unseen benefits," a therapist in "Open Window" tells her patient, a woman who has been raped. It's a bold assertion, that such a harrowing violation might actually lead to something positive. But the movie, which premieres tonight at 8 on Showtime, fully earns the line and makes it work beautifully. For photographer Izzy, played with impressive nuance by Robin Tunney, there are indeed "unseen benefits," gifts that will never erase the past but that might clarify the future and sharpen its focus.

Written and directed by Mia Goldman, "Open Window" is a story of gradual, and therefore genuine, recovery. It moves slowly enough to find, and expose, the deepest emotion in each chapter of Izzy's journey out of hell. The attack occurs in the first quarter of the movie, while Izzy is working in her backyard darkroom, which her fiance, Peter (Joel Edgerton), has just fixed up for her. Her first reaction is to erase the tape -- "Please let me forget about it," she says to Peter after refusing to let the police collect forensic evidence of the rape. Later, she turns from Peter completely, and retreats into numbness.

"Open Window" is also about the way Izzy's rape devastates Peter. A college professor, he has always prided himself on taking good care of her, and he tries to stay close, constantly asking, "You OK?" But he loses her to post-traumatic pain and fear, and then she loses him to his feelings of helplessness. And so, after the rape, we see this otherwise compatible couple becoming distant, step by step, still captives of the rapist somehow. Izzy is Peter's only shining light -- he is at odds with his self-serving father -- and when he loses her he finds despair.

The brooding mood of the movie is broken by Cybill Shepherd, who shows up as Izzy's narcissistic and superficial mother, Arlene. She tries to lure Izzy out of depression with small talk and food and she chastises her for being a downer. "Activity is the greatest cure-all," she advises. It's the kind of role Shirley MacLaine usually knocks out of the park, but Shepherd is less convincing. She brings on the movie's only false notes. A more compassionate presence for Izzy is her therapist, played by Shirley Knight, who knows enough to listen before making gentle pushes forward.

Clearly, "Open Window" is not an easy movie to watch, both because of the rape, which is shown only indirectly in flashbacks, and because of the camera's unwillingness to turn away from or abbreviate the characters' pain. But along with its powerful message it offers a pair of admirably pared-down performances by Tunney and Edgerton. Tunney never makes Izzy dislikable, but she does show the less sympathetic side of Izzy's lapses into self-pity. And Edgerton doesn't invite us to judge Peter for his retreat from Izzy. Just as Goldman places something red at the center of almost every gray scene, Edgerton never lets us lose sight of Peter's heart.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.