Leaving Neverland is crafted with precision and provides a powerful testimony of two men's experience of sexual abuse by a pop icon. It is implemented with such skill that it can only be perceived as credible.
The story is powerful and shocking. Clever camera positioning, editing and lighting. The mood, tone and sound track are haunting. You only feel empathy for the victims. The men are relatable, articulate and intelligent. The viewer watches as these two men confide their most intimate and humiliating experiences to us.
The men have reached a point where there is no way forward but to voice their experiences as survivors of child sexual abuse. It is little wonder they agreed to do this in this manner as they were persistently groomed to lie publicly to the media and to the authorities about their abuse. They even publicly denied the experiences of other victims when these children came forward. Leaving Neverland provides these two men with an opportunity to counteract these denials and to do so in the public domain. They seemed to have been denied this opportunity for catharsis by the justice system who declared their applications to be out of time. They have lodged an appeal. Given that they have received no justice through the legal system (to date) this documentary provides them with a means to regain personal power, improve their mental health and to take control over their own lives. As Wade Robson states "I want to speak the truth as loud as I spoke the lie." There is no way that the people who have taken away his personal power and right to justice have not heard him now.
Leaving Neverland is a narrative about sexual abuse but with wider implications. It is about societal corruption, fame and capitalism. The film somewhat encourages us to understand that the parents were groomed too and that their weaknesses were exploited by a wealthy, popular and manipulative paedophile. In the end we are left feeling sceptical about the parents (the way that their children also feel about them). The audience is prompted to exclaim, "What planet were they living on!" And, "They left their children alone in a bedroom with a paedophile to be molested night after night and for months on end!" The viewer is left asking "Come on! How much did they really know?" That whole question is scary. It leaves you feeling that a blind eye was turned, consciously or unconsciously. It would be more constructive to aim the blame where it belongs, at the paedophile himself, at a society that preferred to believe that this paedophile was beyond accountability, at his publicity machine, and at the minders around him who had to be complicit in this abuse.
The story is powerful and shocking. Clever camera positioning, editing and lighting. The mood, tone and sound track are haunting. You only feel empathy for the victims. The men are relatable, articulate and intelligent. The viewer watches as these two men confide their most intimate and humiliating experiences to us.
The men have reached a point where there is no way forward but to voice their experiences as survivors of child sexual abuse. It is little wonder they agreed to do this in this manner as they were persistently groomed to lie publicly to the media and to the authorities about their abuse. They even publicly denied the experiences of other victims when these children came forward. Leaving Neverland provides these two men with an opportunity to counteract these denials and to do so in the public domain. They seemed to have been denied this opportunity for catharsis by the justice system who declared their applications to be out of time. They have lodged an appeal. Given that they have received no justice through the legal system (to date) this documentary provides them with a means to regain personal power, improve their mental health and to take control over their own lives. As Wade Robson states "I want to speak the truth as loud as I spoke the lie." There is no way that the people who have taken away his personal power and right to justice have not heard him now.
Leaving Neverland is a narrative about sexual abuse but with wider implications. It is about societal corruption, fame and capitalism. The film somewhat encourages us to understand that the parents were groomed too and that their weaknesses were exploited by a wealthy, popular and manipulative paedophile. In the end we are left feeling sceptical about the parents (the way that their children also feel about them). The audience is prompted to exclaim, "What planet were they living on!" And, "They left their children alone in a bedroom with a paedophile to be molested night after night and for months on end!" The viewer is left asking "Come on! How much did they really know?" That whole question is scary. It leaves you feeling that a blind eye was turned, consciously or unconsciously. It would be more constructive to aim the blame where it belongs, at the paedophile himself, at a society that preferred to believe that this paedophile was beyond accountability, at his publicity machine, and at the minders around him who had to be complicit in this abuse.