What self-respecting documentary filmmaker would appear on camera to quote his book editor (Jacqueline Onassis): "She said, 'if anyone can tell this story, you can, David.'") or go in for the close-up to feature a testimonial from his subject ("Thank God for him")? It's an obnoxious way to, respectively, begin and end, a potentially compelling documentary about an incredibly brave woman.
The first half is a rather sloppily edited view of Hollywood in the 1930s with a lot of misguided film clips used to illustrate the worst of celebrity and power (and a lot of footage of director Stenn pacing and fretting and worrying and sitting with every tangential revelation cued with ominous music). The hotel room scene in which Steen anxiously awaits his first face-to-face meeting with Patricia Douglas is embarrassing. So is the admission that he offered to scrub out her toilets to get her to talk. It's important for her, of course. A catharsis, he says. You can't help but feel that Douglas is being exploited all over again so Stenn can get an "exlcusive" for his lip-smacking tabloid story.
When Douglas, as well as her family, are finally allowed to speak for themselves in the second half, it becomes a more focused and moving look at the subject herself, and the life-long ramifications of sexual assault. But Stenn can't help but to throw himself in at the end again, as savior, when he includes Douglas saying, "They should make a documentary about him."
Well, he has.
The first half is a rather sloppily edited view of Hollywood in the 1930s with a lot of misguided film clips used to illustrate the worst of celebrity and power (and a lot of footage of director Stenn pacing and fretting and worrying and sitting with every tangential revelation cued with ominous music). The hotel room scene in which Steen anxiously awaits his first face-to-face meeting with Patricia Douglas is embarrassing. So is the admission that he offered to scrub out her toilets to get her to talk. It's important for her, of course. A catharsis, he says. You can't help but feel that Douglas is being exploited all over again so Stenn can get an "exlcusive" for his lip-smacking tabloid story.
When Douglas, as well as her family, are finally allowed to speak for themselves in the second half, it becomes a more focused and moving look at the subject herself, and the life-long ramifications of sexual assault. But Stenn can't help but to throw himself in at the end again, as savior, when he includes Douglas saying, "They should make a documentary about him."
Well, he has.