I find I'm the skunk at the garden party with this flick. I found this highly acclaimed docudrama repellent, but not for the reasons one might suspect. It was repellent - as well as incomprehensible - to watch Leach's developing interest and fascination with Fred West. Anyone watching this movie should first do some Googling to find out the details of what Fred and Rosemary West perpetrated. If anyone deserves to be called human monsters, it is this pair. In the light of this knowledge, the script's clear intention - to me anyway - to actually make West into a figure of sympathy is disgusting. Knowing the nature of his deeds, his weeping and the crying about the "baby" (complete with colorful regional pronunciation of the word) are repulsive. It was also interesting to see the British treatment of prisoners in interrogation: allowed to wear their own clothes (no prison uniforms) and pretty much conducted like afternoon tea. As at least one other critic has observed, it is incomprehensible how any morally sentient human being could develop any sympathy with this fiend, as Leach evidently did. As the relationship between Leach and West is at the core of this narrative, and her motivation remains unexplained if not inexplicable, the whole movie does not wash.
It was nice of the producers to include the photos of the actual victims in the closing credits. During the movie itself there is minimal emotion at their loss; the burial of their remains is portrayed with as much moral weight as the burial of a pickle jar.
It was nice of the producers to include the photos of the actual victims in the closing credits. During the movie itself there is minimal emotion at their loss; the burial of their remains is portrayed with as much moral weight as the burial of a pickle jar.