The movie is way more fun if you identify with Seyfried because the second half…is a detective movie! One about a plucky and talented outsider whose enthusiasm to unravel a mystery, and whose conflicted sympathy for a dominated woman who may be a femme fatale, gets her sucked into the deep end with a more experienced older detective, with her arc ending in a disillusioned coldness towards her partner/mentor as she realizes he is compromised and that she has been used. A classic kind of story. Whether or not Seyfried is playing ‘Seyfried’ is secondary for me next to how this documentary shifts into a genre thriller without telling you. And like any genre thriller, the thing is more pleasurable if you don’t watch it clinically but get right in there with the POV character.
Do we really need spoilers at this point in the discussion? Perhaps a warning at the very beginning of the thread would be better: anything you hear or read about the movie is potentially a spoiler so just see it before you dive into the discussion.
The only thing I read before seeing the film (outside of the fact that it was supposed to be a a 24/7 document of her last hours before going to jail) was
Spoiler
the mention of a possible best actress award for a documentary. When I first read this I assumed it was a joke about Elizabeth Holmes & so it didn't actually spoil the 2nd half for me, I was surprised that she was going off to prison so soon & had to check my watch to verify that we weren't close to the 3 hr. point. Had I read anymore it probably would have spoiled the surprise of the second half.
I think the “spoiler”—which I would argue is the only thing about this movie that can be spoiled—is something that would have been a lot of fun for me to discover when it happens. Instead, it was the only thing I knew about the film when I went into it, and it made me assume something about the film that did not actually happen.
You don’t need spoiler tags because you’ve already seen it. Why not err on the side of caution for those who haven’t seen it yet so they can have the best viewing experience possible?
Because it's not a conventional film where the spoilers are plot twists or some deus ex machina but rather inextricably built into the making of the film. Anthing written about the film will undermine the impact of seeing it for the first time....moreso than in a plot-driven film.
E.g.
Spoiler
I was put off by how the film started as I was expecting some kind of statement of the film makers or a recording of what the terms of the making of this documentary were. Instead we are immediately immersed in their home life, which I found a bit off-putting at first, but gradually became inured to it and slowly started forgetting that point until the fact of the terms of the agreement became an actual plot twist in the film & it became clear the way the film began wasn't an accident.
Because the film almost replicates an anthropological study that forces the researchers to examine their own motives & ways they are researching their subjects, it's best just to have people watch it first because everything written about the film should be spoilered (and then we'll have a thread where every entry is just a spoiler).
Just the fact that the reveal happens halfway through the film is something that shouldn't be spoiled, because it's a wonderful experience to enter this thing without knowing its exact structure. I thought this was going to be three hours of Fielder living with Holmes, and was giddy when that was upended at the halfway mark, only to transform into something even wilder. As a devoted fan of Fielder, I expected 'something' odd to occur, but it was cool to discover exactly 'what' in real time. I feel bad for people who had any of the second half spoiled for them before the film.
