Mark Reviews Movies: CHARLIE SAYS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 9, 2019

Even though he didn't personally commit any of the crimes, Charles Manson received the notoriety for a series of attacks and murders in the summer of 1969. The members of Manson's "family" who actually committed those crimes, though, have been relegated almost to the status of a footnote in the story.

This is something of an unfortunate irony, since it keeps Manson, who started a cult at a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, as the sort of mythical figure that he wanted to be. The workings of his mind were seen by the public and presented by the press as some great mystery that could never be solved. The illusion of Manson as some grand, unknowable personification of evil persisted. Indeed, it still persists, escalated by the 50th anniversary of the murders, even though the man died while incarcerated in 2017.

Manson is demoted to a side player, albeit a vital and inescapable one, in director Mary Harron's Charlie Says. Because there's no attempt to psychoanalyze Manson or to uncover some complex rationale in his way of thinking, the move actually gives us a clearer view of the man, his motives, and his twisted ideology. We probably see him closer to how he was: a petty, insecure man who believed in his own greatness, was gifted with a way to identify and influence lonely and wounded people, and sought vengeance on a world that, from his perspective, prevented him from achieving what he believed he deserved.

After all of the decades of theories and legends, this conclusion might seem like an over-simplification. Which makes more sense, though: that Manson possessed some undefinable quality—call it psychological characteristics or evil—or that he was an angry man, who unflinchingly believed in his own greatness and had a grudge? If it helps in coming to a decision, only one of those options sees Manson in a way that he might have seen himself.

Again, though, Manson, referred to as "Charlie" and played by Matt Smith, is a secondary character in this film. The main characters are three women—Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon), and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendón)—who were part of the "family" and, as a result of actually committing the crimes that their ringleader orchestrated, were convicted of murder.

Guinevere Turner's screenplay is fairly straightforward, in that it reveals what happened within the Manson cult through a series of flashbacks, and unsurprising, in that the scenes in the past building up to the crimes begin to overshadow the story of the women in prison. In the process, though, the story (based on two books—one by Karlene Faith, who's portrayed within the story, and the other by Ed Sanders) raises significant questions about responsibility and rehabilitation.

In 1972 Karlene (Merritt Wever), a graduate student and activist working with incarcerated women, begins something of a therapy group with Leslie, Patricia, and Susan, whose death sentences have been commuted after the abolishment of capital punishment in California. The women are being kept on death row, out of fear of what they might do or what might be done to them within the prison's general population.

The women also remain in the mindset of Charlie's brainwashing—still referring to themselves by the names he gave them, still convinced he was right, still certain that the only reason his "prophecies" didn't come true is because they're in prison. Karlene wants to help them escape from this way of thinking, if only so that they can live as their own, individual people.

In the past, Leslie arrives at Charlie's ranch, where he runs a commune of self-help and free love. Charlie is in the process of trying to break into the music business, but the leader of this "family" cannot catch a break on his own. Meanwhile, Leslie becomes engrained in Charlie's patriarchal, abusive, and increasingly unhinged ways—eventually preparing for a race war that Charlie wants to start and, in the aftermath, from which he wants to rise to power.

Harron and Turner only care about Manson, the real man, and Charlie, this interpreted version of him, as a means of understanding how Leslie, the two other women, and everyone else in the commune could go along with their leader's beliefs and, later, his violent resentment. The simple answer is that Charlie is, at first, charismatic in his approach and convincing in his promises of escaping the pain of the world.

The more realistic answer is a combination of those qualities and the fact that he intentionally chose people who wanted to escape that pain. There's a telling scene in which a potential candidate for the group turns down Charlie, who responds like a spoiled and entitled child, insulting the woman and sulking. There is nothing extraordinary about Charlie—no real appeal, intelligence, or system of belief—save for his ability to manipulate those who are willing to be or prone to being manipulated.

This, of course, raises the central question: How responsible are the film's three main characters for their actions? Karlene begins her study thinking that they might be victims, without presuming that they are. This might seem like a discomforting, maybe even irresponsible notion to entertain, but the filmmakers are wise enough not to arrive at a simple answer.

Instead, they simply examine the process of being indoctrinated into Charlie's ways of life and thinking, without undermining or exploiting the actual horror of the end results. Charlie Says neither sympathizes with—which would be dishonest—nor outright condemns—which would be too easy—the three women at the center of the story. They, not Manson, are the real mystery here.

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Buy Related Products

Buy the Book (The Long Prison Journey of Leslie van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult) [Kindle Edition]

Buy the Book (The Family)

Buy the DVD

Buy the Blu-ray