according to the movie The Boston Strangleravailable on Disney + from March 17, to the journalist Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) It took her seven days to realize something the police ignored for months. The similarities between the murders of three old women in the city of Boston. The camera follows the character — based on the real figure of the same name — through an ever-widening investigation.
First, informally, at the desk of the newspaper’s editorial staff Record American in which he works. Later, much deeper, consulting police officers, psychiatrists and neighbors of the victims to gather information. In a week, the editor connected the dots and ended up proving that the crimes had been committed by the same man.
Writer-director Matt Ruskin makes it clear that loretta she is a tenacious woman in presenting her work as a combination of determination and attention to detail. Something that the city authorities lack. In fact, she part of The Boston Strangler is a direct accusation: the crimes committed by this serial killer could have been prevented. Gradually, the plot shows how the journalist works on incomplete evidence and discarded or even ignored evidence. All while a good part of the officials in uniform despise her work or, in the worst case, prevent her from doing it.
The Boston Strangler
The Boston Strangler, by Matt Ruskin, delves into the investigation into one of the cruelest serial killers in American history from the point of view of Loretta McLaughlin. The journalist was the first to link the crimes together, something that the script strives to highlight and details in a careful reconstruction of the events. However, the film falls short in its need to narrate everything it proposes. From machismo in journalism, to the inability of the police officers in charge of the case.
The Boston Stranglerdeadly omissions in a time of discrimination
The Boston Strangler, which reconstructs the Boston murders between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, is accurate. With a conscious similarity to David Fincher’s way of narrating — especially in his work the zodiac — the director asks pertinent questions. Specifically, how many of the errors by investigators, prosecutors and ordinary police officers caused the death of any of the thirteen victims.
It also addresses the way in which prejudice built a barrier against loretta, which the writer had to face to demonstrate the results of her investigations. As a woman in the middle of a conservative era, the journalist had real problems in continuing her work. An element that would later allow her to evaluate her achievements from a specific perspective. The value of her in the midst of a hostile environment that hindered all her efforts.
The Boston Strangler explores the grave implications of those circumstances. The character, played by Keira Knightley, must endure taunts, insults and pressure. At the same time, that her careful reconstruction of the crime scenes and the context that surrounded them was spurned. The plot emphasizes how lorettaalong with also a journalist jeancole (Carrie Coon), struggled to be heard. Despite the fact that the case left no doubt that everything was more complicated than just random homicides.
The responsibility of power to prevent a heinous crime
It favors the story not to try to excuse or praise its characters. The director endows The Boston Strangler with an air of careful chronicle. Something that it achieves with a visual section that places special emphasis on historical recreation and builds spaces that symbolize journalistic work. The hallways and corridors of the newsroom grow narrower and darker as the investigation falters, while the lighting lends a painful tone to the domestic scenes.
What is most surprising about The Boston Strangler It is the way in which the script manages to advance two narrative threads in parallel. On the one hand, that of loretta as a character, trying to reconcile his marital status with the importance of the journalistic work he does. On the other, the social and cultural impact of crimes, which are increasingly brutal and unpredictable.
For its second hour, the film delves into various points of view about the same analysis of cultural evil. From the ruthless killer, to the officers who make it harder to catch him. Cruelty is everywhere. An idea that the narrative addresses by moving away from the clichés of the investigative and police genre.
Justice, the big winner in The Boston Strangler
If one element is missing from Matt Ruskin’s tape, it’s its ability to be more than a relevant case reconstruction. The insinuations about machismo in the world of journalism and the accusations of partiality and police incapacity remain halfway.
Much more so, when it becomes evident that The Boston Strangler It bases its effectiveness on subtle denunciation. Whether due to excessive ambitions or because the script deviates from its central setting more often than necessary, the story seems incomplete.
Still, he has a strong enough argument. lorettaIn the midst of family, political and cultural pressures, he advances until he demonstrates the details of a brutal case that he discovered by force of deduction and method. In her wake, she exposed the police in her city and the journalists who surrounded her.
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by the end of The Boston Strangler— slightly anticlimactic in its need to appear punctual — the message is clear. The investigator is — and in real life she was — an unsung hero. One capable of fighting through a minefield of moral and judicial obstacles until justice is done. At least, the closest thing to what the victims and their families will get in the midst of a brutal and fearsome circumstance.