Delayed Reaction: Charlie Says

Premise: The "Mason girls" reflect on their time with Charlie as a case worker tries to rehabilitate them in prison.

 

I get it. The Manson family is undeniably an intriguing topic. There are so many odd and sensational pieces to the story that it feels like we could explore them forever. There are the murders, the way the family lived, how they came to live at the ranch, the race war, the mythology involving The Beatles, and Charlie as a failed musician to name a few things. And each member of the family is as intriguing as the next. I'm just about tapped out at this point though. The You Must Remember This podcast did a wonderfully extension series on the topic. That was enough. If I watch anything else on the topic now, it needs to bring something new and interesting that hasn't been done before. Say what you will about Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, but it found a unique spin on the Manson family.

 

On paper, Charlie Says looks like an intriguing new angle. It puts the focus on the three "Manson girls" facing life sentences. It sets itself up for failure though. Most of the movie is Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray) recalling her history with the family. It covers her introduction all the way to the crimes that put them in prison. The one thing those scenes have to do is make me understand the allure of Charlie. Despite Matt Smith's best efforts as Manson, the movie just can't do it. The filmmakers' opinion bleeds through too much. The movie is too happy to point out Charlie's inconsistencies and his desire to be famous. The challenge of the movie is to explain why Charlie had such a hold of them in the first place, not why the hold was bad.

 

The argument against that is that the movie is about breaking Charlie's hold over the women. Leslie's flashbacks aren't meant to explain the allure. They are meant to chip away at the allure. She's seeing all the warning signs that will eventually break the spell. That's great and all, but it puts the onus on the audience then to come in understanding why they were caught under his spell. And, frankly, I don't need to movie to convince me that Charlie Manson was bad. Even if I was on the fence, the scenes with Merritt Wever as the grad student working with the women would be enough. I need the flashbacks be more concerned about the hard part: trying to take Charlie's side, so to speak. It fails to do that, so the movie ends up being another half-explored account of the Manson family. So disappointing from the director who made American Psycho so terrifying.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend