The story of Ted Bundy told from a perspective of
someone who believed him.
It doesn't speak well for our society that names
like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy are so well known. The obsession with serial
killers is pretty gross. But, I do get it. The periodic true crime spikes in
popularity are based on the idea "how could someone do that?" We're
very good at abstracting the idea so we don't think about the families of the
victims or the suffering the victims went through before being murdered. That
doesn't really excuse it though. It only explains it. The last thing the world
really needs is another movie that implicitly idolizes one of these disgusting
individuals, yet he were are, with a new Netflix movie about Ted Bundy: one
that I watched immediately and with great interest. I am part of the problem.
In my slight defense, I would've seen most movies
starring Lily Collins and Zac Efron. She's pretty and he fascinates me.
I don't know what Zac Efron is. After High School
Musical, he got frighteningly ripped and has mostly attempted to do comedy.
He's not great at comedy, but he tries really fucking hard at it. That
eventually pays off for most actors who go that route. Just look at the Rock.
And that marks most of Efron's adult performances: He never makes it look easy
no matter what the role is. That makes him oddly perfect to play Ted Bundy.
He's handsome, but when he's trying to be charming, there's something uneasy
about it. The fact that Efron doesn't disappear into the role works in the
movie's favor. Bundy was always putting on a show for people. He wasn't the
most convincing actor though. So, having Efron clearly playing a role is
exactly right. I realize that much of this sounds like a backhanded compliment.
In a way, perhaps it is, because I'm essentially saying "Zac Efron plays
Ted Bundy well because he isn't convincing in the role." However, I'd
rather believe that Efron is aware of his limitations and wisely chose a role
that lets him take advantage of all his strengths while playing against type.
He's putting in the work now to get even better down the road.
Lily Collins is an actress I keep rediscovering. I
didn't register her at all in The Blind Side, so the first thing I
really remember her in is Mirror, Mirror. I thought the movie was fairly
forgettable, but the song from the closing credits is now one of my favorite
songs ever*. I mostly forgot about her again until Rules Don't Apply.
Since then, I've seen just about anything she's in. I have to assume there's
more to it than "she's pretty", but I have trouble placing what else
it is about her that I like. There's an earnestness to her performances that I
like. In Extremely Wicked, she has an odd function. The movie is told
from her perspective in a way, but she's more of a supporting character. She
has to believably play someone who looks foolish to everyone else. The audience
has to see why should would believe Ted Bundy was innocent for so long. She
does as well as she can. I don't think anyone could really pull the role off
without more help from the writing and directing.
*This isn't an exaggeration. Since I heard it, in
2012, it's one of the 5 songs I've listened to the most. I can't explain why. I
just love it.
What I found most
interesting about the movie was also what prevented it from being a better
movie. It tries to reveal who Ted Bundy really was the way that Liz Kendall
(Collins' character) would've seen it. But it does this without ever
sympathizing with Bundy. So, the audience knows the whole time that he's a bad
guy but Liz doesn't. In particular, it does this by never showing the murders
or the crime scenes until the very end. The first victim we see is when she
shows Ted the picture of the decapitated body at the end. Right after that is
when Bundy fully reveals himself as a monster to the audience and, more
importantly, to Liz. Until that moment, Liz could still believe that somehow
this was all a mistake. Collins and Efron play the scene well. It's
frustrating, because the entire movie before that is the audience being several
steps ahead of her. There's also the fact that it's revealed late that Liz is
the one who first reported Ted to the police. It makes for a nice reveal, but
saving that until the end forces Collins to give a more opaque performance for
the first 7/8ths on the movie. But, the movie can't let us know she reported
him any earlier, because that would fundamentally change the perspective of the
movie. And that perspective is the main thing that sets it apart.
I don't know where
else to throw this in, but I hated the music for the movie. It was way too
active. At times, it even started making me think of The Room, which is
not an ocular connection that a serious drama wants to make. I wonder if
something more sparse would've worked better.
This isn't a big
movie, so the rest of the cast felt like they were doing extended cameos. Guys
like Jeffrey Donovan and Dylan Baker are period-appropriate authority figures.
Haley Joel Osment has some nice moments, but his only real purpose is to let us
know that Liz finds someone after Ted. Kaya Scodelario should be third-billed
on this. Playing Carole Anne Boone is no easy task. While Collins had to play
the woman who figured out she was duped by Bundy, Scodelario has to play the
woman who believed him until the end and fell in love with him. It's hard to
find a way to play her that isn't a little cartoonish, so Scodelario settles
for a good impression of her and little else. With Jim Parsons and John
Malkovitch playing the prosecutor and judge, the Florida trial plays like the
circus it really was. Neither actor attempts to tone down what makes them
distinctive as performers, and those tiral scenes always feel like they're
about two beats away from being funny.
Extremly Wicked,
etc. is kind of the perfect Sundance movie (perfect, not best). It has
familiar actors I like getting to play roles they normally wouldn't. It has a specific
perspective on a familiar topic. It looks good but not expensive. I'm glad I
saw it but there's no reason for me to see it again. The only thing missing to
get Sundance BINGO is a high schooler coming-of-age.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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