Positive I.D. 1986

One year after Julie Kenner Stephanie Rascoe Myers was raped, the trauma continues to shadow her life. She pushes away her husband, John S. Davies Don Kenner, relies on heavy tranquilizers, and attends regular sessions with a psychiatrist. When Dana Lauren Lane, a charming neighbor, suggests that rape is >“every woman’s fantasy”< and that there must have been a moment she enjoyed, Julie lashes out, widening the rift between her and Don and driving a wedge between her and their friends.

Her situation worsens when she learns that the rapist, Vinnie DeStephano, has secured release from prison. She discovers a chilling possibility: it’s technically possible to assume the identity of a dead person, and she decides to take control in a dramatic, dangerous way. Using a dead child’s birth certificate, she creates an alter ego, Bobbie King—a vivacious red-haired woman from Florida—and even engineers a paper trail by getting herself arrested for a bad-check charge. As Bobbie, she begins to frequent a downtown bar owned by Vinnie’s uncle, where Roy Mercer Steven Fromholz works and befriends her. One night, they share rough sex in a hotel, hinting that Mercer may know more about her than he’s letting on.

Meanwhile, Julie spends more time in the Bobbie guise, while Dana steps in to look after Julie’s two little girls and her husband, filling the void left by Julie’s estrangement and detachment. The day Vinnie is released, Julie enters the bar as Bobbie, and when the owner tries to introduce them, Vinnie asks, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Julie shoots Vinnie dead and leaves, slipping back into the shadows of her old life. The next morning, news coverage reports that a positive ID has been made of Vinnie’s killer as Bobbie King, the notorious Florida check-kiter.

In a TV interview, Mercer is revealed to be an undercover detective, and he tells the press that Bobbie is a professional assassin who will never get caught. Reporters track Julie down in front of her house to ask if she feels vindicated by Vinnie’s death; she answers with a denial, flees inside, and wakes her children, who initially call out “Aunt Dana.” The final image lingers on Julie, dressed as Bobbie, stepping into a phone booth at a truck stop; a semi-truck pulls up, then leaves, and the phone booth stands empty, leaving her ultimate fate uncertain.