I wonder if true crime podcasts and documentary television have killed true crime movies. That the abundance of them and their popularity makes movie interpretations less potent, less gripping, not to mention less surprising -as just about every serial killer in U.S. history has been covered extensively by this craze. There have been so few true crime movies in recent years and I can’t believe it’s a coincidence that they generally haven’t been any good. We’re a far cry from the like of Memories of Murder and Zodiac, to say nothing of the many great fictional serial killer movies that draw on real cases; and Hulu’s Boston Strangler (the latest softball from a neutered 20th Century Studios), is one of the most dimly clinical thus far.
Written and directed by Matt Ruskin, the film takes the perspective of the Boston Record American (later the Boston Herald) journalist who first broke the story of the serial killer in the early 1960s, differentiating it from the more police-focused The Boston Strangler movie from 1968 (starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda!). Keira Knightley stars as Loretta McLaughlin, who essentially becomes an investigative reporter in pursuit of this story, and runs up against the typical sexism of her time and profession in the process. She faces even more scrutiny once the apparent killer Albert DeSalvo (David Dastmalchian) is caught and she casts doubt over the validity of his sole guilt.
The movie is from the start a rather drab-looking affair, as seems to be the obligatory aesthetic of serial killer movies that strive for the grim atmosphere of David Fincher but forget the technique to his visual choices. The colours are pale and muted, the newspaper office might have one dull light fixture, and the constant overcast seems a touch lazy, identifying Boston by environmental stereotype more than any genuine character to the city. On the whole it is a palette though that reflects the movie’s general tone and direction, which is just as drearily banal and orthodox.
McLaughlin is the kind of character Knightley could play in her sleep: a highly conventional impression of a notable woman made into a feminist figurehead by cheap writing and blunt characterization of a type that she’s played before, albeit this time without a corset. That’s not necessarily a knock as she has in the past brought out more to her historical roles than what is on the page, but this is certainly not one of them. McLaughlin exists as a shallow avatar more than a character, whose competence in her job and resilience against general sexism at work and at home is cynically elementary; and devoid of any substance beyond what you might see in an 80s’ anti-harassment PSA. The movie has nothing new or valuable to say about feminism or sexism, relying on old tropes and platitudes, and defining its principal character by them -who in spite of Knightley’s efforts, is exhausting to watch as a result.
At her side through a lot of the movie is Carrie Coon as fellow reporter Jean Cole, investigating the case with McLaughlin but seemingly arbitrarily deemed less important -and underwritten as a result, though Coon gives hints of a more interesting performance. Elsewhere in the movie is Chris Cooper and Bill Camp as McLaughlin’s doubtful superiors at the newspaper, mere archetypes each; Alessandro Nivola as the slick yet irresponsible detective who is McLaughlin’s primary police contact. And Dastmalchian, though the kind of character actor who it’s easy to imagine would really work well as the subject of a serial killer drama (not unlike John Carroll Lynch in Zodiac), is here hardly called upon to play DeSalvo in any disturbing or notable way -in part because the movie’s thesis being so bent on him not being the sole perpetrator of the Boston Strangler murders requires that he be showcased with less significance than the ongoing mystery.
That mystery is relayed with such a tempered mood and hackneyed writing that it is less exciting than reading a Wikipedia breakdown of the events. The murders are never illustrated, only alluded to as the film endeavours to maintain a PG-13 rating for its Hulu/Disney+ home. The drama in investigation is severely muted as Ruskin’s filmmaking tends towards the most banal choices possible and the script plays to tropes without any semblance of bite. The result is a murder movie without any of what makes a murder movie good and compelling. And you better believe it holds on the moment when McLaughlin comes up with the name “Boston Strangler”. There are several of these deeply cynical moments that condescendingly and awkwardly emphasize a beat and its intended purpose: scenes of McLaughlin surrounded by men clearly less intelligent than her, an otherwise supportive husband who has to be jammed through an asshole filter to narratively justify their divorce, a knowing look at the end between McLaughlin and Cole, and maybe the bluntest of all, DeSalvo being stabbed to death mere seconds after getting off of a phone interview with McLaughlin, clearly about to tell her the full truth. The movie condenses time immensely and is never clear about where this happens -beginning in 1962 and ending in 1965, but it's paced in a way that might imply merely a few months.
In spite of the title, Boston Strangler is much less a movie about the actual killer or killings associated with that name than it is about Loretta McLaughlin personally and what the case means to her as a woman in a quintessential 1960s male industry. In fact the movie feels downright intimidated by its own grisly subject matter. There’s nothing wrong with this story avenue itself, it just is done no favours by lacklustre characterization and a hollow delivery of formula. This film reminds me a lot of She Said in its stale approach to biography and its quaint gutless politics, but without that one saving grace of occasionally captivating artistry. This is an awfully boring film to look at by comparison and I don’t think any movie about the Boston Strangler murders should be so underwhelming.
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