FILM REVIEW: 'RAIN' DVD

A Drama of Realism & Troubled Childhood, with a Different World View

It’s a shame we don’t see indie films like Rain (Image Entertainment) turn up in greater release anymore, other than in short runs at art-house-type theaters. The movie, which aired on Showtime in February, is a family film with feel-good moments yet steeped in often harsh reality.

Set in the Bahamas and filmed entirely there, 14-year-old Rain (Renel Naomi Brown) leaves her home on a small island after the death of her grandmother in search of her biological mother who had abandoned her. Boarding a ship headed for the big island, she finds her mother (Nicki Micheaux of the ABC Family TV show Lincoln Heights) through a Nassau address but discovers she is a prostitute in city slums, and a drug addict as well. In a story of building new dreams from shattered hopes, she is taken under the wing of a track coach (CCH Pounder of The Shield) and finds a new outlet for her life and new family.

Of course, a tale of a child overcoming such tragedy has been seen before, but Rain finds its own compelling drama along with genuine warmth and charm. Writer/director Maria Govan balances gritty reality, including a view of the Bahamas tourists don’t see, with emerging rays of emotional sunshine. Pounder is uplifting here, as is the undefeated spirit carried by young Brown. It’s also one of the best “running movies” since, perhaps, Chariots of Fire, though intimate rather than epic in scope.

According to Tourism Today, the filming of, and also critical acclaim for, Rain has actually launched greater interest in film production in the Bahamas, and that can only be a good thing for a nation still best known as a tropical holiday getaway.