There is a photograph of journalist and newspaper editor Agness "Aggie" Underwood, one of the first women to hold the editorship role at a daily newspaper, with a baseball bat lying across her desk amidst a mess of papers and telephones. Not pictured is the starter pistol she was also known to keep. Underwood, who worked in journalism from 1928 to 1968, was a formidable force who often would be one of the first people on-site at major events (such as the discovery of murder victim Elizabeth Short's body). She steadfastly interviewed high-profile celebrities and worked to highlight women's neglect within the carceral system and within society at large. Underwood kept these tokens of masculinity on her desk to intimidate others, such as "overzealous press agents," within an overwhelmingly male industry. She had learned to play by their rules.
Underwood's understanding ricochets through the Matt Ruskin-penned and -directed Boston Strangler: a woman ought to embrace masculinity if she wants to succeed in a man's world. But there is also another sense in which the film and its leads, Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon, challenge this notion and patriarchy itself. In displaying the labour needed to become adept within a male workforce, the film exposes the nefarious and slinking ways in which patriarchy destroys women's morale in the workplace.
Boston Strangler shows that, ultimately, public forces such as police, political heads and society as a whole does not value women, their worth or their safety. This is a true-crime drama that, by virtue of Knightley's knowing performance and the well-written script, feels tired and afraid, but still willing to persist toward amelioration of harm done to women, because it knows eradication is not possible. There is a quietly persistent, simmering and incendiary flare to the film.
Knightley plays real-life journalist Loretta McLaughlin, the first person to notice a connection between the brutal murders of a few women in Boston, and who went on to report consistently and critically on the "Boston Strangler" as more and more women lost their lives. The film follows McLaughlin as she works her way from the lifestyle section of a newspaper to the male-saturated crime section. She becomes tireless in her coverage of one of the city's most prolific and endlessly confounding serial killers, alongside colleague Jean Cole (Coon).
The two women work doggedly to keep others from dying, and to keep from becoming victims of masculine violence themselves. Often coming to the edge of losing their own lives as they pursue suspects, it's not lost on us that they're doing work the police ought to be doing. Ruskin's subtle lens follows the journalists as they expose the ways in which women are simultaneously reviled and ignored within the workplace and the greater community.
Without glamorizing the killer, the cops or their procedure, and even keeping journalism from becoming a sort of martyrdom, the film pokes holes into bureaucratic, systematic workings. It exposes the ways in which society works to keep dangerous men near women, and also society's hubris, revealing the deep-seated ways that many don't care that women are in danger every day.
One of the film's gifts is the emphasis it puts on learning. Knightley's McLaughlin begins the film with a vibrant desire to be a crime reporter, but lacks the investigative skills or understanding of how to work the system to gain crucial information — things that seasoned investigative reporters possess. Coon's Jean plays a mentor and friend to Loretta, and Ruskin does a spectacular job of depicting their relationship, and how women support each other by serving as de-facto teachers when no systemic foundations serve to officially provide us with the knowledge that men accumulate through schooling or through culturally and professionally sanctioned mentorship.
There are so many brilliant scenes throughout the film, wherein Loretta tries to gain access to crime scenes so that she might report to the best of her abilities, but fails. Jean observes this and, being the more experienced reporter who has gained familiarity with cops and police station clerks, shows Loretta how it's done, but not in a stand-offish way. Coon's Jean wears an expression that says "try it like this" as she walks into scenes with confidence and finesse. She exhibits an almost masculine demeanour that tends to project ownership of space, showing the younger reporter how to personify the ethos of the bat and starter pistol Underwood kept on her desk as tokens.
Jean teaches Loretta that she must work the system by playing by its rules, showing her that she has to attain some of the masculinity that Underwood learned to wear if she wants to succeed within the patriarchal world. In a stunning scene well into the film, Loretta believes she's being stalked by either a reader of her column or by the Boston Strangler himself, and she pulls out a bat and moves through the house, hoping to strike any intruder. Loretta is learning, even as she shudders and shakes from fear, and throughout the film becomes the confident, analytical and interrogative reporter she would be later in her life. (Loretta would go on to do important work criticizing the American federal government for its failure to respond meaningfully to the AIDS epidemic.)
But there is also a nuanced angle that Knightley takes in her performance with Loretta: she doesn't portray her character as a woman who becomes hardened or blinkered in her personal life because of the masculine hardness she needs to wear in her professional life. Rather, Knightley's performance imbues something more traditionally feminine. As she flips through case files, we see her being affected, moved to silent tears, by the violence done to the female victims. There is a halting way about Knightley's movements on screen, partly because Loretta is depicted in her early years as a reporter still learning the trade, but also because she is afraid and has reason to be. She knows that as a woman she could easily become one of the victims she writes about.
We see Loretta's self-awareness, her humanity, and empathy. When Knightley contorts her face in response to the violence she sees and learns about, there is a receptivity to her quiet observance that conveys respect for the deceased, which is not something often afforded to victims in true crime. Knightley's Loretta shows that, even as women often have to perform masculinity, we are still human — a platitude, sure, but a notion many neglect.
Knightley portrays Loretta with a fallible and faltering grace, with care for and reactivity to the women within her community, and Coon's Jean interacts with Loretta with a likewise nurturing understanding that isn't at all like the "tough love" dynamic depicted in so many male friendships on screen. Rather, theirs is grounded in kindness and respect, an understanding that people are more than their professional occupations, that people are members of a community.
This film magnificently portrays a deeply feminine teaching and learning, without glamorizing neither crime nor justice. Ultimately, there is something deeply incisive and more real about this film than there is about other traditional true crime — something that so many films about male serial killers with female victims forget. Where David Fincher's Zodiac focuses almost lasciviously on the killer's perceived intelligence or superhuman abilities and a petrifying idea that a person must become like the killer to catch him, Boston Strangler reminds us that there are real people behind these crimes — not hellish evil without any societal context. True crime media's seeming belief that there is no causation at all preceding killers, biological conditions notwithstanding, says much about our refusal to accept that there is something wrong with the patriarchal-capitalist society we have built.
Boston Strangler is sobering in a way that we direly need. A sadness abides in the film as it fades to black. And when the credits roll, something will nag at you, something so at odds with the hopeful, abolitionist crescendo of something like The Whistleblower, which believed there was a problem whose end can be conceived.
Knightley's Loretta and Coon's Jean convey that no amount of investigative journalism will solve men's violence toward women. And this is what makes this film perhaps the most realistic true-crime picture we have received in a long time.
(Disney)Underwood's understanding ricochets through the Matt Ruskin-penned and -directed Boston Strangler: a woman ought to embrace masculinity if she wants to succeed in a man's world. But there is also another sense in which the film and its leads, Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon, challenge this notion and patriarchy itself. In displaying the labour needed to become adept within a male workforce, the film exposes the nefarious and slinking ways in which patriarchy destroys women's morale in the workplace.
Boston Strangler shows that, ultimately, public forces such as police, political heads and society as a whole does not value women, their worth or their safety. This is a true-crime drama that, by virtue of Knightley's knowing performance and the well-written script, feels tired and afraid, but still willing to persist toward amelioration of harm done to women, because it knows eradication is not possible. There is a quietly persistent, simmering and incendiary flare to the film.
Knightley plays real-life journalist Loretta McLaughlin, the first person to notice a connection between the brutal murders of a few women in Boston, and who went on to report consistently and critically on the "Boston Strangler" as more and more women lost their lives. The film follows McLaughlin as she works her way from the lifestyle section of a newspaper to the male-saturated crime section. She becomes tireless in her coverage of one of the city's most prolific and endlessly confounding serial killers, alongside colleague Jean Cole (Coon).
The two women work doggedly to keep others from dying, and to keep from becoming victims of masculine violence themselves. Often coming to the edge of losing their own lives as they pursue suspects, it's not lost on us that they're doing work the police ought to be doing. Ruskin's subtle lens follows the journalists as they expose the ways in which women are simultaneously reviled and ignored within the workplace and the greater community.
Without glamorizing the killer, the cops or their procedure, and even keeping journalism from becoming a sort of martyrdom, the film pokes holes into bureaucratic, systematic workings. It exposes the ways in which society works to keep dangerous men near women, and also society's hubris, revealing the deep-seated ways that many don't care that women are in danger every day.
One of the film's gifts is the emphasis it puts on learning. Knightley's McLaughlin begins the film with a vibrant desire to be a crime reporter, but lacks the investigative skills or understanding of how to work the system to gain crucial information — things that seasoned investigative reporters possess. Coon's Jean plays a mentor and friend to Loretta, and Ruskin does a spectacular job of depicting their relationship, and how women support each other by serving as de-facto teachers when no systemic foundations serve to officially provide us with the knowledge that men accumulate through schooling or through culturally and professionally sanctioned mentorship.
There are so many brilliant scenes throughout the film, wherein Loretta tries to gain access to crime scenes so that she might report to the best of her abilities, but fails. Jean observes this and, being the more experienced reporter who has gained familiarity with cops and police station clerks, shows Loretta how it's done, but not in a stand-offish way. Coon's Jean wears an expression that says "try it like this" as she walks into scenes with confidence and finesse. She exhibits an almost masculine demeanour that tends to project ownership of space, showing the younger reporter how to personify the ethos of the bat and starter pistol Underwood kept on her desk as tokens.
Jean teaches Loretta that she must work the system by playing by its rules, showing her that she has to attain some of the masculinity that Underwood learned to wear if she wants to succeed within the patriarchal world. In a stunning scene well into the film, Loretta believes she's being stalked by either a reader of her column or by the Boston Strangler himself, and she pulls out a bat and moves through the house, hoping to strike any intruder. Loretta is learning, even as she shudders and shakes from fear, and throughout the film becomes the confident, analytical and interrogative reporter she would be later in her life. (Loretta would go on to do important work criticizing the American federal government for its failure to respond meaningfully to the AIDS epidemic.)
But there is also a nuanced angle that Knightley takes in her performance with Loretta: she doesn't portray her character as a woman who becomes hardened or blinkered in her personal life because of the masculine hardness she needs to wear in her professional life. Rather, Knightley's performance imbues something more traditionally feminine. As she flips through case files, we see her being affected, moved to silent tears, by the violence done to the female victims. There is a halting way about Knightley's movements on screen, partly because Loretta is depicted in her early years as a reporter still learning the trade, but also because she is afraid and has reason to be. She knows that as a woman she could easily become one of the victims she writes about.
We see Loretta's self-awareness, her humanity, and empathy. When Knightley contorts her face in response to the violence she sees and learns about, there is a receptivity to her quiet observance that conveys respect for the deceased, which is not something often afforded to victims in true crime. Knightley's Loretta shows that, even as women often have to perform masculinity, we are still human — a platitude, sure, but a notion many neglect.
Knightley portrays Loretta with a fallible and faltering grace, with care for and reactivity to the women within her community, and Coon's Jean interacts with Loretta with a likewise nurturing understanding that isn't at all like the "tough love" dynamic depicted in so many male friendships on screen. Rather, theirs is grounded in kindness and respect, an understanding that people are more than their professional occupations, that people are members of a community.
This film magnificently portrays a deeply feminine teaching and learning, without glamorizing neither crime nor justice. Ultimately, there is something deeply incisive and more real about this film than there is about other traditional true crime — something that so many films about male serial killers with female victims forget. Where David Fincher's Zodiac focuses almost lasciviously on the killer's perceived intelligence or superhuman abilities and a petrifying idea that a person must become like the killer to catch him, Boston Strangler reminds us that there are real people behind these crimes — not hellish evil without any societal context. True crime media's seeming belief that there is no causation at all preceding killers, biological conditions notwithstanding, says much about our refusal to accept that there is something wrong with the patriarchal-capitalist society we have built.
Boston Strangler is sobering in a way that we direly need. A sadness abides in the film as it fades to black. And when the credits roll, something will nag at you, something so at odds with the hopeful, abolitionist crescendo of something like The Whistleblower, which believed there was a problem whose end can be conceived.
Knightley's Loretta and Coon's Jean convey that no amount of investigative journalism will solve men's violence toward women. And this is what makes this film perhaps the most realistic true-crime picture we have received in a long time.