Before the Dawn (2019) is, without exaggeration, the worst film I’ve ever seen—and for one giant reason: it’s pedophile apologia.

Yes, the script is laughably bad, the performances are wood stiff, and the whole thing reeks of self-importance. But what really makes it irredeemable is how brazenly it romanticizes statutory rape.

Look at the poster. The framing is a giant red flag: a classroom, a chalkboard, students in their desks—then front and center, a teacher in a low-cut red top pressing forehead-to-forehead with a teenage boy. The film isn’t hiding its subject matter. It’s flaunting it.

And in case you think this is going to be a hard look at a predatory teacher? Nope. The movie bills itself as romance. A tale of “forbidden love.” Complete with sex scenes between a grown adult woman and a student the script explicitly identifies as a child. His own mother calls him that on screen. She’s the lone character sounding alarms, yet even she never calls the cops.

What’s worse is how the movie spins the teacher. She’s not written as a manipulative abuser—she’s painted as a tragic victim of fate, a woman who “just can’t deny her feelings.” But everything she does is textbook predator behavior. She initiates the flirtation. She arranges secret after-school sessions. She isolates him from peers. That’s not chemistry. That’s grooming.

Then comes one of the most revolting narrative choices: she’s raped by another teacher, a jealous colleague. But instead of being treated with the horror it deserves, the assault is basically used to reposition her as the damsel so her student can rush in as a white knight. She’s still framed as sympathetic, while the student’s abuse is reframed as noble love.

And here’s the kicker: lead actress Alana de Freitas didn’t just star as the teacher. She wrote the screenplay. Which makes the whole thing reads like wish fulfillment. The teacher is styled as an almost flawless archetype, her only “sin” being that she “follows her heart.”

The reception is equally nauseating. It sits at 5.8 on IMDb—above average. Read the reviews and you’ll see people praising it as “taboo romance” or “forbidden fruit.” Some even root for the characters to stay together.

Festivals went further. LA Femme International Film Festival nominated it for Best Feature Film. Boston International and Focus International both did likewise. Why on earth are professional festivals handing trophies to what amounts to pedophile propaganda?

Let’s be honest. If the genders were reversed, there would have been outrage. The movie would’ve been buried. Instead, Before the Dawn got distribution through Indie Rights, found its way onto Apple TV, Roku, and Pluto TV, and even snagged a write-up in American Cinematographer—where the DP proudly talks about building rain rigs out of Hudson sprayers and bouncing light off a king-sized bedsheet. Microbudget quirks shouldn’t eclipse the fact that what they were lighting was a sex scene between a teacher and her student.

This gets to the bigger problem: society’s double standard when it comes to female sexual predators. When the abuser is an attractive blonde, too many people celebrate it. “Boys should be grateful,” they say. Grateful that someone with authority over them coerces them into sex? Call it what it is: rape.

And this isn’t some obscure edge case. Google “female teacher charged with sexual assault” and you’ll see fresh arrests almost every week. Women abusing boys. Women abusing girls. These are predators with direct access to children, and somehow movies like Before the Dawn end up celebrating them.

Some defenders try to split hairs, calling this ephebophilia instead of pedophilia. But ephebophilia isn’t even a recognized clinical diagnosis. The law is crystal clear: anyone under the age of consent is a child. Which makes this predatory behavior. Full stop.

Normally, I’d link to streaming platforms so you can judge a film for yourself. Not this time. Before the Dawn disgusts me too much. It’s out there on major corporate platforms, which in itself is damning—they’ll happily profit off a film that romanticizes teacher-student rape, as long as the predator is a pretty woman.

@movies