Review of Capturing the Friedmans (2003) by Maureen C — 18 Nov 2012

This movie is a study of the dynamics of a family with a psychopath in it's midst, and in this family, the sickness infects the children (I'm not sure about Seth) as they identify and bond with their father, an unfortunate thing. Had the mother been more aware or less innocent, she may have been able to protect her children from him. Some people cannot fathom such a thing happening, much less in one's own home, as she said herself. She also didn't seem to realize that sexual abuse tends to cycle down through the generations if the victims do not seek therapy. That, and surely the signs that he lacked normal empathy and was lying about his sexual orientation may have been warning signals to her. It was a toxic mixture of personality and environment. Her innocence damned herself and her sons and she didn't appear to be the sort of woman to stand up to a man in a muscular way. A good old warning of - if anyone ever touches our kids, I will kill him - may have impressed him enough to stay away from them. Psychopaths don't respond to empathy or human decency, only to those factors that affect their own self interest. So if it wasn't in his interest to abuse his children or if it was too troublesome, he wouldn't have done it. The father appears to be a classic psychopath, charming (superficially), manipulative, superficial, lacking empathy, empty. He has that haunted look of the psychopath, saying very little, looking down at suppertime, detached, a blank dark look, the affect off. The verbal abuse by the sons of the mother is chilling and shows how very disturbed they are, especially the clown. I always found clowns creepy and my children were terrified of them when they were small. No wonder, my sister, who was a psychiatric nurse, said that pedophiles gravitate to clowning as it gives them access to kids (along with Oxfam and the Boy Scouts).

What is interesting is the grudging respect, if one can call it that in the case of a psychopath, of the father for the mother, as he knows she is aware of what he is. I was glad to see in the epilog that she found a new life and I can empathize with her relief at being rid of him. I wander what became of Seth? The other two are really creepy, especially the clown. Sadly for her, psychopathy does have a genetic component. Poor woman, did she ever make a terrible mistake when she was young.