I've seen many documentaries about true crime. Some are really good describing depravity of commited crimes, another are worse and quite boring. This one, in my opinion, falls into a latter category.
The reason I watched this one, was because all of the reviews describing how good it is this story to be told from the woman's perspective and how captivating it may look to the viewers. To be honest it's not. Absolutely. It has nothing to do with gender of a director\producer, but with a point of view and actual talent.
Storywise there is a one true abuse victim and her son. The poor girl who was kidnapped, raised, raped and eventually killed by someone who was suppose to be a father figure. My heart trully ackes for her. The way the story had been told and all those people who were interviewed, I really don't believe that anyone had cared about her at all. The documentary tries to show that there were many people in her life, but in fact there were none or almost none. Let's dive into specifics
1) Her birth parents. From the story described, neither her birth mother nor her birth father had cared for her from the beginning. Her father blames the Vietnam war and her mother was looking for another relationship. No one cared about her or her sisters since the day they were born. Besides the father of her two sisters was hardly ever mentioned.
2) The investigative journalist didn't really care about her. He was so clearly looking for a scoop for his book. The simple fact is that he simply tried to stay relevant and got a tip from the email. There weren't many emails too, otherwise he wouldn't have be able to answer them all (by his claims).
3) Her high-school best friend hang out with her simply because of her looks, as the ugly girl with good looking girl. If she'd cared about her as she claims, she'd do something way before the gun\rape incident.
4) Her pimp (strip club hostess) looks as someone who simply lies. No millionaires parties go without illegal substances or paid sex. That's the actual truth. The only reason she was "appaled" by her offering sex for 50$ is because it disrupted her business. Oh and it's an obvious lie that she interfered with her stripper friend incident who got killed eventually.
5) Adopting parents of her poor son look like perverted family in every hollywood movie. It's so obvious they don't care neither about her or her son and try to have their moment, it's disgusting.
6) The FBI/Police never opened a case on her (as it mentioned a few times over).
The simple truth is that this girl falled through the cracks of the system and society. From the get-go, she had lived in the "white trash" conditions. Her surroundings weren't trying to help her, but to use or ignore her every chance they got. Nobody cared about her, and she didn't believe anyone could help her, so it ended the way it did. IT's not as she was locked inside a cage without ability to escape. There were so many moments when this could be avoided, but no one simply cared.
What had bothered me the most, is the way the movie tries to present all those people as good hearted individuals, who were powerless to stop it. They weren't. They were indifferent individuals who try to grab their spotlight and somehow justify their poor actions and decisions. This movie helps them with their goals and this really annoys me.
This is not a story about a poor girl or about the atrocities she'd gone through, this is a story about failures of the system and society, and that should have been the focus of this movie.
The reason I watched this one, was because all of the reviews describing how good it is this story to be told from the woman's perspective and how captivating it may look to the viewers. To be honest it's not. Absolutely. It has nothing to do with gender of a director\producer, but with a point of view and actual talent.
Storywise there is a one true abuse victim and her son. The poor girl who was kidnapped, raised, raped and eventually killed by someone who was suppose to be a father figure. My heart trully ackes for her. The way the story had been told and all those people who were interviewed, I really don't believe that anyone had cared about her at all. The documentary tries to show that there were many people in her life, but in fact there were none or almost none. Let's dive into specifics
1) Her birth parents. From the story described, neither her birth mother nor her birth father had cared for her from the beginning. Her father blames the Vietnam war and her mother was looking for another relationship. No one cared about her or her sisters since the day they were born. Besides the father of her two sisters was hardly ever mentioned.
2) The investigative journalist didn't really care about her. He was so clearly looking for a scoop for his book. The simple fact is that he simply tried to stay relevant and got a tip from the email. There weren't many emails too, otherwise he wouldn't have be able to answer them all (by his claims).
3) Her high-school best friend hang out with her simply because of her looks, as the ugly girl with good looking girl. If she'd cared about her as she claims, she'd do something way before the gun\rape incident.
4) Her pimp (strip club hostess) looks as someone who simply lies. No millionaires parties go without illegal substances or paid sex. That's the actual truth. The only reason she was "appaled" by her offering sex for 50$ is because it disrupted her business. Oh and it's an obvious lie that she interfered with her stripper friend incident who got killed eventually.
5) Adopting parents of her poor son look like perverted family in every hollywood movie. It's so obvious they don't care neither about her or her son and try to have their moment, it's disgusting.
6) The FBI/Police never opened a case on her (as it mentioned a few times over).
The simple truth is that this girl falled through the cracks of the system and society. From the get-go, she had lived in the "white trash" conditions. Her surroundings weren't trying to help her, but to use or ignore her every chance they got. Nobody cared about her, and she didn't believe anyone could help her, so it ended the way it did. IT's not as she was locked inside a cage without ability to escape. There were so many moments when this could be avoided, but no one simply cared.
What had bothered me the most, is the way the movie tries to present all those people as good hearted individuals, who were powerless to stop it. They weren't. They were indifferent individuals who try to grab their spotlight and somehow justify their poor actions and decisions. This movie helps them with their goals and this really annoys me.
This is not a story about a poor girl or about the atrocities she'd gone through, this is a story about failures of the system and society, and that should have been the focus of this movie.