Finding My Own Darkness in ‘Palm Trees and Power Lines’ (2023)
TW: grooming, rape/sexual assault
The funny thing about any form of abuse is that your brain forces you to forget traumatic events, and then years later, those memories begin to resurface. Recently, I watched a movie that depicts the horrors of grooming. It brought up buried memories of something that has haunted my thoughts for almost a decade.
Jamie Dack’s Palm Trees and Power Lines follows a 17-year-old girl, Lea (Lily McInerny), who is approached by a man twice her age. Tom (Jonathan Tucker) notices her at a local diner and drops her off at her home after she gets in trouble. It’s an intense and uncomfortable movie that reveals the psychological mind games of grooming and how it affects a young teenager’s life.
Cruel Intentions
As summer draws to a close, Lea is depressed. She spends her time sunbathing, watching makeup tutorials and drinking with her friends. Her single mother (Gretchen Mol) is a real estate agent who pursues romantic relationships but disappears on her daughter with every new partner.
At the beginning of the film, Lea and her friends decide to dine and dash at their local diner. The cook at the diner berates them, but Tom, a customer at the diner, fends off the cook and offers to give Lea a ride back home.
From this point on, Tom stalks and walks like a predator. He claims to have his life figured out. Everything he does is premeditated and the audience is left to wonder what he’s up to when he lures Lea to his motel room. There’s a sense of danger in the movie that slowly unfolds to the horrors of Tom’s true, cruel intentions.
Memories Resurfacing
Every story is different. I wanted to share my personal story in an attempt for the audience to understand how much it affected my life. I didn’t realise the gravity of what had happened to me until years later when I learnt what grooming meant.
For many people who have experienced abuse, their brain forces them to forget the crucial details. While writing this article, I tried to remember the many ways he used to try and get my attention. It’s hard to go back to those dark days and dissect those traumatic events I’ve been through, and I have carried that burden my entire life. My mind goes back and forth — through denial and reassurance — trying to convince myself that the things I went through were not exaggerations. As I’m writing this piece, I’m trying to convince myself that perhaps I’m exaggerating the details and justifying the actions of the past.
Years of Self-Reflection
When I was 17 years old, I met someone who was older than me. I was smitten by his humour and we quickly developed a friendship. He would make me laugh by doing the silliest things and I found it so easy to talk about what I was struggling with during that time. I was attending my freshman year at college. I knew that he desperately wanted to meet me. He knew that I loved Toblerones, so he would always say that if we ever met, he would give it to me — or something more along the lines of, “I have a gift that I would like to give to you. Let’s meet up.”
At the time, I was a blossoming 17-year-old who was trying to figure myself out. I had never gone out on a date or kissed a boy, but his attention meant everything to me. When I think about this now, it was strange to me how an older person wanted to talk and spend time with a teenager. I’m still justifying our friendship by telling myself that it must have been all in my head. He was in his early twenties, so it’s not a big deal.
As we grew closer to each other and talked until late at night, I confessed that I had feelings for him. But the next day, he rejected me. I was upset by it at first, but I thought it was for the best and moved on. We were friends, after all. We remained that way for one more year and he finally confessed that he had feelings for me, too. Instead of being happy that he finally reciprocated his feelings for me, I shut him down. I was upset and scared because I’d never had someone say something like this to me. I put my walls up. I remember telling him that I never wanted to speak to him again. Well, what would you expect? I was only 18 years old with no guidance or understanding of what this meant to me.
Even after all these years, it’s still difficult for me to navigate through these feelings. Part of me blames myself for the actions of a 17-year-old me but I know now that I shouldn’t blame myself for what happened. I know what happened to me. None of this is normal. Why would someone who is much older than me want to have a relationship with me? I never understood any of it. I knew he had feelings for me and vice versa, but this kind of reaction that came from me afterwards his confession was my way of running away. I didn’t understand the severity of it all, but I’m glad that I made that decision. Otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened to me.
Processing all of this now, I don’t quite understand why someone older than me talked to me in the first place. I pursued and showed interest in him. Was it my responsibility to shut it down when things started to get serious? I didn’t quite understand the world then as I do now. I was figuring things out about who I was as a person, trying to navigate college and find new friends in a completely different country. I had found some connection with someone who shared the same humour as I did and I enjoyed talking to him. At that time, I was excited that someone even wanted to talk to me. I was 17! And talking to someone much older than me. I never bragged about this to my friends, and I don’t know why. Maybe I thought the whole thing was embarrassing and maybe deep down I did think there was something wrong with it. It’s strange to look back at this experience and find so many inconsistencies regarding the relationship I had with him.
I don’t remember him trying to control me but he listened to everything I said with sincere sympathy and I was grateful for it. He desperately wanted to see me. I kept declining it every time. Why? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I remember feeling uncomfortable with his continuous requests. He wouldn’t stop. But when our friendship ended, I was relieved and scared because I thought I overreacted. I was downsizing my anger towards his confession and made myself feel guilty since I hurt his feelings. I put myself last in every possible way, and I carried this guilt for some time before I talked to him again. I apologised for my sudden reaction and he did, too. I think he felt guilty about confessing because he had told me before that whenever he told someone that he liked them, they never shared the same feelings. He had told me that before and that’s probably why I felt guilty about rejecting him almost immediately.
See, this is the guilt that I carried. I cared more about his feelings than my own because I am a people-pleaser. I knew I hurt his feelings and I apologised. But looking back at it now, it wasn’t me who should have reached out to him. It should’ve been him. He did this to me. We tried to go back to being friends and staying in touch, but the damage was done. We lost touch after a couple of months and I think we only texted each other to wish each other “Happy Birthday.” I never looked back at this friendship until I found out that he got married, and I forgot about it pretty soon enough. I was happy for him. I really was. I think a part of me was relieved that I hadn’t accepted his many invitations to see me because I was horrified to think that it would have been me standing next to him.
It’s hard to write down all of this because he’s not a terrible person. That’s why I have felt very conflicted about all of this. He wasn’t a terrible person to me. I don’t remember much about his previous relationships, just that he kept getting rejected which made me sympathetic towards him. I never thought of him as a calculated person. But I kept wondering if that was his way of trying to make me feel bad for him. I can’t come to terms with that. My version of him was sweet and caring, but I was in a lot of conflict understanding that there were probably ugly parts about him.
Almost a decade after, processing these emotions is hard. I have tried to come up with excuses for myself and him so that I can try to put this aside. But it’s hard to let go of something when you haven’t had the time to heal and process it. I was scared and I didn’t understand the gravity of what had happened to me until I talked about it to a friend of mine. “I think I might have been groomed?” I had so many questions and doubts. I wasn’t sure if I was because I know what grooming is and isn’t. I think the problem is that I try to minimise what had happened to me to convince myself that I was okay. We were never physical; we never met. But those conversations he and I had — thinking about it now — make my skin crawl. How did I ever end up in a situation like this and why did it go this far? I pursued him; am I reaping the consequences of my actions? No, I cannot and won’t blame myself. It’s not right. I think I spent the better decade blaming myself for a lot of this. I was too harsh on my younger self, and even now, to fully come to terms with all of this.
The Horrors of Grooming
What happened to me is nowhere near what happened to Lea. There is a devastating sequence in the third act where a 34-year-old man begins to coerce and manipulate Lea for his own gain. He asks and expects her to commit something that she isn’t comfortable with and her only choice is to give in. Trapped in the ‘relationship,’ Lea finds herself in a dangerous situation.
Their relationship isn’t a ‘forbidden affair,’ but Lea tries her best to hide it from everyone around her, even her friends. She knows that it isn’t a normal relationship for someone at that age to have, hence why she keeps it a secret. Tom makes promises of security and listens to her about her parents and friends, who she claims to be different from her. Lea begins to isolate herself from them, spends less time with them and invites Tom inside her home. Their ‘relationship’ turns when Tom invites her back to his motel room and rapes her. He makes her think that she is giving consent, but the truth of this entire disturbing sequence is that a minor can never, under any circumstances, give their consent.
Tom is the only person in this ‘relationship’ that holds the power — this endless power struggle that destroys Lea’s worldview. The movie frames Tom as the villain and Lea as the victim, who ultimately, at the end of the movie, returns to him after a short dispute between the two.
Palm Trees and Power Lines never tries to shame Lea’s so-called infatuation with Tom. But with the social commentary behind the dangers of grooming, does the movie provide a good portrayal of it?
From the moment Lea catches Tom’s eye to when he asks her to commit to uncomfortable tasks that put her in danger, every step he takes is calculating. He charms Lea and lets her see him for what is on the outside: a charming, handsome man who listens to her and makes her feel special. The connection, to her at least, is magnetic. She wants to be seen by him. She comes alive with him. Tom constantly preys on her need for attention. It’s these details that show the menacing nature of Tom’s schemes, and the viewer knows it and sees him through her perspective. Dack is sympathetic towards Lea’s experience
The horrors of grooming are presented accurately in Palm Trees and Power Lines because Tom’s fascination with Lea is calculated as their ‘relationship’ grows. There are outside forces like her friends calling him a paedophile and the waitress, who has witnessed the grooming pattern of his other victims. Tom takes advantage of her vulnerability and loneliness to manipulate the truth and keep her away from her friends and family. Many alarming red flags indicate that their lines keep blurring with each step Tom takes to get control of her. Tom constantly looms over her life, visiting her bedroom and spending his day at the beach with a teenage girl. He’s a dangerous and menacing figure who knows that Lea will do anything for him, even if it means putting her in the worst possible scenario.
Dack explores the complex ‘relationship’ between Tom and Lea in a delicate manner. With the rape scene and Tom becoming more possessive and exploiting Lea, Dack shows the abusive power struggle of their ‘relationship.’ The movie successfully shows the harrowing reality of grooming through Tom’s stalking, charmful personality, and attempt to understand her problems, while also making Lea believe she is in control. In one scene, Tom invites her to “his place,” which happens to be a dingy motel and they drink alcohol in a cup. He tells her that all of this is permanent. He rapes her and makes her believe that it was her choice, while also reassuring her that she’s okay with this.
Every step he makes is tactical and knows that he must make these predatory steps slowly. He slowly breaks down these walls to make her believe that she is safe with him, giving him the upper hand in their ‘relationship.’ This imbalance of power keeps getting exploited and more dangerous as Tom’s true nature reveals itself. But Lea, who is just an innocent victim, trusts him and she falls into his trap.
No Pieces Left Behind
I didn’t expect to connect with the story behind Palm Trees and Power Lines, which mirrors some of the experiences I went through. But the truth is that it had always been at the back of my mind; I just never dealt with it. I found similarities between Lea and me. Like Lea, I never quite understood that I was being controlled or manipulated. His actions weren’t romantic because they blurred the lines between infatuation and being exploited. Like Lea, I was naive and lonely, and here was someone taking advantage of it.
It’s shocking to me that I had gone through these things and it’s hard for me, even now, to deal with this. There’s this saying, ‘Time will heal all wounds,’ but what if I never get the chance to do that? What if I end up broken and riddled with trauma and guilt unable to process this incident? This is the unbearable discomfort that I carry wherever I go.
