Movies for the rest of us

Charlie Says
****
Rating: R
Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes
Stars: Hannah Murray, Merritt Wever, Sosie Bacon, Matt Smith
Writer: Guinevere Turner
Director: Mary Haron

Fifty years after Charles Manson’s “family” traumatized the world with the Tate/LaBianca murders, director Mary Haron (I Shot Andy Warhol) has found a surprisingly relevant way to revisit the grisly events: Through the eyes of the women Manson somehow hypnotized into carrying out the slaughter. 

Set three years after the 1969 murders, the film follows a graduate student (Nurse Jackie’s Merritt Wever) who’s been assigned to teach women’s studies classes to three of Manson’s former acolytes, now serving life sentences in a California prison. 

The women — Leslie Van Houten (Game of Thrones’ Hannnah Murray) Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon) and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendon) — are still blindly devoted to “Charlie.” But the instructor is determined open their eyes to the awful implications of what they’ve done — even if that means shattering their blissful delusions and dooming them to a lifetime of crippling guilt. 

Former Dr. Who star Matt Smith seems an odd choice to play Charlie in the film’s difficult-to-watch flashbacks, but he admirably avoids revisiting the over-the-top Manson portrayals we’ve become used to. Smith’s Manson is disarmingly gentle and alarmingly reassuring as he woos these aimless young women into his orbit — and even when his black hole of evil becomes evident, this Manson remains undeniably charismatic. 

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