This is a brave and accomplished piece of work, thoughtful and engrossing throughout. Not since reading about Mary Bell have I been so moved to think and feel about so-called evil girls and women, with the cross currents between do-gooders and evil-doers so expertly explored.
Of course Jim Broadbent was brilliant as Lord Longford. But Myra Hindley was also played with incredible subtlety and power. As for Ian Brady he was magnificent, bursting through my TV screen like a combination of Sade and Heathcliff.
There was a lot of hinterland to all this which raised the film above mere docufiction. Hindley under the influence of Brady told us that "evil can be a spiritual experience too". The shadow of the Divine Marquis as well as Baudelaire's FLEURS DU MAL hung over this production. You can and will think what you like about all this, but for me the main message was neither the portrait of a psychopath nor the bumbling career of Longford, but the demonisation of the woman criminal and the ghastly nature of public opinion in its lynching mood.
Men can be evil psychopaths and sometimes get parole, but the great British public will always need a female monster as their ultimate totem of evil. Judaeo-Christian culture's obsession with Eve (=Evil) demands no less than this scandalous superstition. Later our country had the intelligence and courage to release Mary Bell. Myra Hindley was left to rot in gaol, her only solace the Open University.
Congratulations to director Tom Hooper and to channel four for reminding us of all this.
Of course Jim Broadbent was brilliant as Lord Longford. But Myra Hindley was also played with incredible subtlety and power. As for Ian Brady he was magnificent, bursting through my TV screen like a combination of Sade and Heathcliff.
There was a lot of hinterland to all this which raised the film above mere docufiction. Hindley under the influence of Brady told us that "evil can be a spiritual experience too". The shadow of the Divine Marquis as well as Baudelaire's FLEURS DU MAL hung over this production. You can and will think what you like about all this, but for me the main message was neither the portrait of a psychopath nor the bumbling career of Longford, but the demonisation of the woman criminal and the ghastly nature of public opinion in its lynching mood.
Men can be evil psychopaths and sometimes get parole, but the great British public will always need a female monster as their ultimate totem of evil. Judaeo-Christian culture's obsession with Eve (=Evil) demands no less than this scandalous superstition. Later our country had the intelligence and courage to release Mary Bell. Myra Hindley was left to rot in gaol, her only solace the Open University.
Congratulations to director Tom Hooper and to channel four for reminding us of all this.