Tabloid -- Movie Review

Tabloid

Directed by Errol Morris

See the movie before you read this.  This is an analysis more than a review. 

This film is an case study in self-indulgence, narcissism, manipulation, hypocrisy, and deceit.   It was a scandal that apparently received more attention in England than here.  I had never heard of this woman or this bizarre case until seeing this film.  Joyce McKinney, as a young woman, got involved with a Mormon man named Kirk Anderson and was expecting to marry him, when he suddenly and inexplicably disappears.  He had gone to England as a Mormon missionary, fulfilling a Mormon requirement for dutiful missionary service.  McKinney tracks him down in England,  taking several male bodyguards with her, including a pilot.  She proceeds to "kidnap" him, hold him in a cottage in southern England for some days or weeks, "forces" sex upon him in an attempt to wrest him away from the Mormon "cult" into which he has been indoctrinated and immersed.  She ends up being arrested but escapes back to Canada and the U.S.  The film is the story of this saga told through interviews with a number the of players (but not Kirk Anderson) and supported with ample documentary footage.  It is dominated by Joyce McKinney who tries to present herself as a wounded woman on a quest to rescue the brainwashed Kirk from the clutches of his Mormon captors.  It is her undying love for Kirk that impels her to go on this arduous, indefatigable quest.

The thing is:  I don't buy it.  This woman has a flair for attention getting spectacles, as well as acting, disguise, manipulation and deceit.  She's very good at presenting herself in a way that will be ingratiating while at the same time concealing or denying mountains of contradictory evidence to her version of the facts.  A much different construction of her character was uncovered by the Daily Mirror which revealed her extensive career as a sex worker specializing in bondage and domination.  This relentless pursuit of Kirk can be seen as an extension of that mentality, except that the Mormons were a little too much for her.  The film is really a study of rage wrapped in cotton candy.  A curious incident is reported from her later years about a dog that fiercely attacked her and nearly killed her.  The dog was her own, part pit bull and part mastiff, and reportedly weighed 150 pounds.  She had obtained him as a guard dog and attributed the attack to veterinary assistants who drugged the dog for sport which caused the dog to attack her.  This is probably the most implausible of all the implausible tales that she tells.  I suspect she had been abusing the dog and it turned on her, but of course, we will never know the truth.  However, the film presents her version without question.  It is probably the most outstanding example of a highly dubious rendition of events not critically examined by the director and allowed to pass for truth.  The director has apparently been duped or is being complicit in this con throughout in spite of the fact that he had much contrary evidence to the self-serving masquerade presented by Joyce McKinney, a fair portion of which was actually presented in the film.  Yet he still allowed McKinney to dominate and the film and to present herself in an ultimately sympathetic portrayal.  He failed to take a critical or prosecutorial stance toward her many dubious claims and did not pursue or develop the substantial evidence for a very different construction of her character, and thus furthered the fraud by this attention hungry self-promoter.  I'm not saying don't go see the film.  The film is engaging, interesting, and even entertaining.  It is well put together and technically competent.  The story is intriguing, but watching this movie feels a little bit like being in church, where the speaker is well-spoken, smooth and polished, but you have the gnawing feeling that everything you are being told is a crock.