True crime as a genre is having a bit of a moment. It isnât as if this form of entertainment ever really goes away. But the tidal wave is hitting its crest. Netflixâs Dahmer seems to be a tipping point in terms of wondering where the line is in terms of exploiting murderers as entertainment while dragging victimsâ families through the mud. Can we talk about horrifying real topics with double digit body counts without feeling exploited. Enter Huluâs Boston Strangler.
Within three years, 1962-1964, in Boston, fourteen women were murdered in their apartment for the police to find. A nasty calling card was left, a silk stocking tied in a bow around their necks. Drama made manifest as reality becomes like a novel. It is not lost on me why these types of true crime stories create compelling films or books. We want to understand the psychology behind such a person.
Director and screenwriter Matt Ruskin takes a very different approach to this story. The killer isnât the protagonist; his investigators are. Keira Knightley portrays Loretta McLaughlin, who starts as a lifestyle reporter at the beginning. Her ambitions brought to the crime beat while these women were being found. I use the word âwomenâ and not âvictimsâ as a calculation. Ruskin tries his best to frame these women as such, people. In one sequence, Loretta is writing as the camera focuses on each actress as the assailantâs fatalities. One has a sense Ruskin has seen others make these same mistakes. But this is a unique element of this story; the victims were female but also were the primary investigators. As the film progresses, Lorettaâs editor Jack MacLaine (played with Chris Cooperâs trademark crouches and grumbling) pair her with undercover reporter Jean Cole.
Carrie Coon is such an actress to cut this character out of whole cloth with simplicity and panache. Her chemistry with Knightley as duel Nancy Drews feels effortless by comparison of the numerous âBoston?â accents that pass as male extras. Lead detective Copley is a fedora and trench coat for Loretta to bounce ideas off. After learning that he is a composite, no wonder the lack of identifiable human traits. The underrated Alessandro Nivola is in great disservice.
No, this is Knighleyâs film which she is great capable of mastering. The Boston Record American reporters are the focus; this is serial killer Spotlight. Lorettaâs determination becomes a character arc; her quest becomes obsession as the film continues. As she enters the home of a potential suspect, Keira concocts layers of nuance from confidence to caution within minutes.
This scene reminds me so much of another in the genre; Jake Gyllenhaal odyssey into a suspectâs basement in Zodiac. An impression that Ruskin studied David Fincher is made painfully aware from the opening minutes. Shadowy alleys with desaturated florescent phone booth lighting are de rigueur of the Gone Girl director. Even daylight is defused through opaque curtains and post-production color correction. Loretta listening to confessions, magnetic tape reels balletically spins in close up in Mindhunter fashion.
This is not a directorâs showcase as much as a conduit for the biopic. There have been films made about this particular case, mostly as puff pieces for a police station. This one being the most incompetent when it came to actually catching this murderer. The film ends more with a footnote than a proper solution. The Boston Police Department let politics rationalize a conclusion for society. I will not give anything away here. However, I will leave you with a warning. If you keep searching for answers to why people do bad things, are we willing to end with just more questions?
