Line #15 Film/TheRapture


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4ab866c6_e2fe_4df2_9625_59ac0b0e1354.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:♫ ''It’s the end of the world and she don’t feel fine.'' ♫]]
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4	''The Rapture'' is a 1991 American religious drama film written and directed by Micheal Tolkin and starring Creator/MimiRogers and Creator/DavidDuchovny.
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6	It centers around Sharon (Rogers), a woman in Los Angeles who works in a boring job by day and lives a swinging lifestyle by night. Finding both empty, she is intrigued when she overhears some coworkers discussing the prophesied end of the world, involving the Rapture where true believers will be taken bodily up to heaven. After learning more, Sharon becomes convinced their belief is true, becoming a born-again Christian. She tells Randy (Duchovny), a fellow swinger, and converts him as well. Six years later, they are married with a daughter and active in their church. However, Sharon's faith is tested when tragedy strikes and her world starts to unravel...
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8	Creator/PatrickBauchau appears as Vic, Sharon's swinging partner. Creator/WillPatton shows up in the third act as a cop who keeps an eye out on Sharon and her daughter Mary in the desert.
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10	----
11	!!Examples:
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13	* AnswerCut: Sharon, who has heard passing reference to a child prophet, asks "Who is the boy?" Cut to the boy, a child of maybe eight, prophesying in a meeting that Sharon is attending.
14	* ArchangelGabriel: He appears on horseback, blowing his trumpet, signaling the apocalypse at the end of the film.
15	* BarredFromTheAfterlife: Sharon refuses to give up her anger at God for what people go through and is literally "left behind" across the river, unable to enter Heaven. When asked by her daughter if she knows how long she'll have to stay there she answers: "Yes. Forever."
16	* CaughtUpInTheRapture: The evangelical church Sharon and Randy join believes this will happen. [[spoiler: At the end of the film, they're proven right]].
17	* CentralTheme:
18	** How much are you willing to sacrifice in the name of your belief?
19	** If there is a biblical God is he actually an all-loving Creator or actually an all-powerful dictator?
20	* ContrivedCoincidence: Who is Sharon's cell mate after she is arrested for the murder of her daughter? The hot babe with the back tattoo who was her partner in a foursome in the first act. (Tattoo Lady has also found God in the meantime.)
21	* CreditsGag: A "Miriam Spickler" is listed in the end credits as "Troubleshooter." Miriam Spickler is Mimi Rogers' real name.
22	* CrisisOfFaith: Sharon undergoes one [[spoiler: after her husband's senseless murder]]. It only gets worse from there.
23	* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: How Sharon winds up getting involved in evangelical Christianity. She's bored both by her boring job and by her swinger lifestyle, which has lost its novelty.
24	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Sharon is so resentful and bitter against God that she rejects a guaranteed reunion with her loved ones, choosing an empty, miserable life in Purgatory instead.]]
25	* EasyEvangelism: Sharon easily becomes a born-again Christian, but it's somewhat justified as she felt her current life was empty. Randy however is also easily converted, though he initially resisted.
26	* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: At the end of the movie Sharon and her fellow believers are proven right when the rapture happens.
27	* FanserviceExtra: Several minor characters are shown nude or having sex along with the protagonists early on.
28	* GodIsEvil: [[spoiler:The film does explore this question, as Sharon is embittered and disillusioned by a God that chose not to intervene when her husband was murdered and her child was killed by her own hand. In the end, God is benevolent enough to save anyone who accepts faith into their life, including lifelong atheists, but Sharon chooses to stay in purgatory forever because she cannot accept God's allowance of pain and suffering.]]
29	* TheHedonist: Sharon, Randy and the other swingers. Sharon is tired of the lifestyle though and becomes a Christian, bringing Randy with her.
30	* HollywoodAtheist: {{Zigzagged}}. Randy is initially an atheist who defends his hedonistic swinger lifestyle by saying it's a biological imperative for humans to have sex. Then he converts to evangelical Christianity almost effortlessly when Sharon tells him about the idea. Later, we meet Foster, who says he's been an atheist all of his life but is a normal, morally upright man who converts after seeing really good evidence.
31	* IgnoredExpert: Sharon is warned by the child prophet that her impulsive belief to enter the desert could possibly be a trick by the devil, but her hubris prevents her from truly listening.
32	* IHaveAFamily: Randy says "I have a little girl" to the shotgun-toting SpreeKiller who is shooting up his place of business. The shooter promptly kills him.
33	* IntimateMarks: Angie, one of the swingers, has a tattoo which goes down her whole back and buttocks, which is seen when she's having sex with a man at an orgy. She apparently got it all in one night, and Angie is quite touchy at being asked questions about this.
34	* JerkassGods: Although not malicious enough to qualify [[GodIsEvil as evil]], [[spoiler:during the rapture God allows many people including atheists into heaven but he also destroys both the earth and universe and demands love and servitude and withholds peace and happiness from those that don’t.]]
35	* MsFanservice: Sharon early on is a swinger and shown topless while in sex scenes, often with the focus on her [[BuxomBeautyStandard very large breasts]].
36	* MundaneAfterlife: The purgatory-like place [[spoiler: Sharon]] ends up in is a vast empty, featureless desert.
37	* NayTheist: Sharon becomes one [[spoiler: after her husband and daughter die]], believing that God abandoned them.
38	* NeverMyFault: [[spoiler:Mary essentially pressures Sharon into killing her so that she'll go to heaven quicker. Instead of encouraging Mary to [[Film/ASeriousMan accept the mystery]], live, and have faith in God -- the by-the-book Christian response to such calls to action -- Sharon kills her and then spends the rest of the movie angrily blaming God for her own actions.]]
39	* NonNudeBathing: Sharon has a ShowerOfAngst with her clothes still on, after backsliding into her old ways and taking a hitchhiker to a sleazy motel for sex.
40	* OffingTheOffspring: Sharon [[spoiler: murders her daughter]] to hasten her entry to heaven.
41	* {{Pride}}: Sharon's FatalFlaw is that she inherently has only a shallow and unexamined understanding of her own faith, swinging dramatically from blaming God for the emptiness in her life (caused by her own actions), to arrogantly believing that she fully understands God's plans, to lashing out when God doesn't immediately answer all of her problems. According to Creator/RogerEbert:
42	-->Everything she does is consistent with the fundamentalist view of how the world will end. There is even an argument for the shocking act she commits, several weeks into her vigil, although of course it is wrong – inspired by the sin of pride, of thinking she knows God's plans.
43	* RageAgainstTheHeavens: Sharon denounces God after she [[spoiler: kills her daughter]].
44	* RealAfterAll: At first it seems like Sharon's beliefs are destructive and misplaced, causing a terrible tragedy. [[spoiler: Then they get confirmed at the end of the film.]]
45	* ReallyGetsAround: Sharon at the start of the film given her swinger lifestyle, plus her boyfriend, Randy and the other swingers seen. Initially it appears Sharon and her boyfriend spend each night after work cruising around to find other people who they can have sex with.
46	* ReligionIsRight: [[spoiler: At first it seems like Sharon's beliefs are not only wrong, but delusional and destructive. By the end of the film, the rapture really does happen and the believers are proven right. However the film itself is more nuanced on the subject and questions whether, even if what they believe is true, is it morally right?]]
47	* SelfInflictedHell: [[spoiler: Sharon refuses to enter heaven, even if she can see her daughter and husband again, remaining in an empty desert place by herself forever because she refuses to accept God.]]
48	* ShowerScene: An unconventional example--naked Mimi Rogers, everybody, but in a scene where Sharon is taking a scalding hot shower at 3 am so she can get "clean" before accepting God into her life, while telling Randy that she doesn't want to have a guilty conscience any more.
49	* SilentCredits: The credits play out in complete silence after the ending, where Sharon rejects God and decides to stay in purgatory.
50	* SoulCrushingDeskJob: Sharon is a telephone operator, back in the day when there were telephone operators. All she does all day is ask the people calling in for numbers "Is that a business or residence?", before telling them to "Hold for the number." Over and over again. Even the room she works in is boring, with literally the whole room colored in shades of gray.
51	* SpreeKiller: Randy is murdered when an employee that he fired returns with a shotgun and goes on a killing spree.
52	* SuicideIsShameful: After [[spoiler: she kills her daughter]], Sharon can't go through with killing herself, due to the belief she'll go to hell rather than heaven.
53	* ThreewaySex: Sharon, a swinger, has a threeway early on with a man and woman.
54	* TimeSkip: Sharon succeeds in recruiting Randy to the church. Cut to "SIX YEARS LATER" and Sharon and Randy attending a service, married, with a daughter.
55	* TitleDrop: The child prophet, aged into a teenaged boy after the six year TimeSkip, says at a service that "The rapture is coming," and then predicts that it will come this year.
56	* ToplessnessFromTheBack: Angie, one of the swingers, gets shown this way (with her right breast displayed bare from the side briefly as well), which shows off the tattoo running all down her back [[IntimateMarks onto her buttocks]].
57	* WholePlotReference: Sharon is basically [[Literature/BookOfJob Job]] questioning God at the end. [[spoiler: Unlike him though, she doesn't reconcile with God.]]

Context Film / TheRapture