The story of serial maniac Alberto de Salvo, also known as the Boston Strangler or Green Man, is told not through the eyes of the murderer, but through the eyes of those who managed to find and capture him. This helps director/writer Matt Raskin avoid the error of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story by forcing viewers to experience the immersive experience of all murders from the perpetrator’s point of view. This approach caused a significant wave of criticism from those who thought that the creators of the series aroused in the audience sympathy for the maniac. In reality, showrunner Ryan Murphy was trying to discover the root cause of evil – what childhood traumas created such a monster inside a once fragile boy? The work turned out to be detailed and painful, but in the end Evan Peters, who played Dahmer, aroused pity, who said after the premiere that he no longer wanted to injure himself with such roles.
Shot from the movie “Boston Strangler” (2023)
20th Century Studios
Ruskin’s story is not about the Boston Strangler himself (of course, the absolute product of all the horrors of his early childhood), but about two journalists who succeeded in making a big contribution to his capture. These are real personalities – Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) and Jean Cole (Carrie Coon). At first, they embark on a dangerous “journey” not at the call of their journalistic duty, but with longing. Both work for a local newspaper that is trusted exclusively for testing toasters and writing about women’s fashion accessories. Cole is the first to voluntarily rebel to conduct an investigation into torture at a psychiatric hospital, and McLaughlin follows him.
Overcoming both the boss’s prejudices and their colleagues’ teasing, journalists join forces to find a maniac who has managed to intimidate the entire female population of Boston. There is a poignant moment in the movie where the heroines receive hundreds of letters from readers who finally get a chance to talk about issues that really matter to women: What’s it like to be a lonely girl who risks becoming a new victim of a sick pervert? And how can you protect yourself in a world where for a long time almost no one cared about the victims of a torturer who always made fun of only the opposite sex?
This strong female intonation makes The Boston Strangler like last year’s friendly drama about female investigators. “Her Truth” – About the journalists who exposed Harvey Weinstein. In both paintings, women are not only victims but also defenders. They reverse the usual pattern of having to wait for their savior and take matters into their own hands. After all, saving drowning, as you know …
Shot from the movie “Boston Strangler” (2023)
20th Century Studios
But unlike the more intense and procedural Every Fact that first tried to explain the justice process in Hollywood step-by-step, the picture with Keira Knightley seems to be a (again) unfilmable story – the world would lose nothing.
Trying hard to visually reproduce David Fincher’s signature style (which he succeeds in), “Boston Strangler” lacks the audacity and inner anguish of its author. First talking about fictional maniacs (“Seven”), Fincher then deconstructed his own childhood; Here he and all the adults around him lost his sleep and a quiet life because of the serial killer who scared everyone. America is nicknamed the “Zodiac”.
While the film starring Robert Downey Jr. also often sags under the author’s intent to put 10 years of maniacal evil into a few hours, Fincher’s own strong pulse has been felt in history, obsessed with the desire to punctuate the entire “i”, free from the horrors in which he lived and grew over the years. Moreover, the motivation of the director was later enough for two seasons of the hit “Mindhunter”, dedicated to the main maniacs of the 60-70s and profilers – detectives who introduced the concept of “serial maniac” and tried to build their characteristic profile. become an essential part of any investigation in the future.
Shot from the movie “Boston Strangler” (2023)
20th Century Studios
Ruskin, the author of The Boston Strangler, has no such self-interest. With the meticulousness of an experienced bureaucrat, he reproduces the already well-known story step by step and from beginning to end, freeing it from spark and tension. Beautiful and believable in their images, Knightley and Kuhn are not enough for an almost two-hour movie that lacks originality.
If maniacs are distinguished by their writing style, they are probably necessary for those who bring these gruesome stories to the big screen. Due to its absence, the Boston Strangler 2023 version appears not to be a detailed portrait of the tragedy, but to the identity of a criminal – a dry document with a brief description of the main characteristics of not only the wanted, but also the wanted. movie about him
Source: Gazeta
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.