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greenmyrtle's Replies
SPOILER ALERT. Yes I have thought this highly possible from first viewing. The clues are glaring if you watch through that lens. I agree with all your points, plus the timing of Johnson & the girl walking away from the school align with the witness sighting of the girl with a man. Johnson's insistence on being in the ambulance, lest she tell? But if it's Johnson he is in denial and projects his guilt onto Baxter, a random man off the street, and truly believes it. Baxter embodies his shadow self.
More subtle indications; the opening sequence as Johnson stands, having murdered Baxter (his shadow looms in the background, maybe the shadow self he hoped he'd just killed?) and he says 'oh my god' and gulps. Is he horrified realizing he murdered Baxter and all that implies for himself, his future? Or did he just wake from a dazed state of fractured personality and just realize that he himself is the rapist?
It is a movie about ambiguity, chock full of ambiguities. We never even know what "The Offence" is: the opening credits run through the scene immediately after Johnson murders Baxter and has beaten his fellow officers. This opening scene seems to frame the murder as the central Offence, but of course the viewer is quickly distracted by another offence, the rape.
The offender is also left entirely ambiguous. It could have been anyone. All the action in the movie offers no satisfaction, no justice, no good guy/bad guy. When we say a movie is disturbing what does that mean? if we knew 'who dunit' we wouldnt' be disturbed. The uncertainty is disturbing.
It amazes me how many viewers/reviewers assume Baxter's guilt just cos he is accused, and accused by someone who as lost his grip on reality! NOTHING in the movie ties Baxter to the crime or the scene. He's willful, disrespectful, unhinged, refuses to defend himself; enough to damn him not just in Johnson's mind but in ours? We feel sympathy for Johnson and his distress. Thus very few people ask the question you asked.
This response shows little or no understanding of how sexual assault survivors, especially children, behave. No the girl may not have told someone the moment he wasn't around. She has just had all sense of safety ripped out of her, how can she know who is safe to tell anymore?