Who do you believe?
An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.
- Harm to children
- Sexual violence
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Character
Grave, earnest, contemporary and bleak.
- gravecomic
- earnestironic
- contemporarynostalgic
- warmbleak
- sparerichly built
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“Is it fair to its subject?”
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“Is the ambiguity a cop-out?”
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“Is Capturing the Friedmans emotionally manipulative?”
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- CinemaSerfon TMDB · Jun 20267/10
The Friedmans are your stereotypical aspirational middle-American family with a mum, a dad and three brothers. Arnold is the dad: a pillar of the local community and music teacher; Elaine is the stay-at-home mother and Sam, David and Jesse are their children. They have a spacious home and are keen on making home movies to celebrate just about any occasion. Then their world comes apart at the seams. The authorities are informed that Arnold has been receiving some dodgy Dutch pornographic magazines and so after the gentlest of sting operations arrest him. He admits his misdemeanour, but it turns out that this is just the tip of an iceberg that indicates he has not stopped at just looking at photos but that he has been abusing his position of trust to actually assault some of the kids in his charge. Moreover, as the investigation gathers pace it appears that his teenage son Jesse has been complicit all along. What director Andrew Jarecki proceds to do now is follow the legal process, but rather than just present us with a straightforward chronology he starts to explore what actually happened in this case - and there is more than one permutation. From the interviews with the brothers,
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Cast
- Arnold FriedmanSelf (archive footage)
- Elaine FriedmanSelf
- David FriedmanSelf
- Jesse FriedmanSelf
- Seth FriedmanSelf (archive footage)
- John McDermottSelf - Postal Inspector
- Frances GalassoSelf - Ret. Director, Sex Crimes Unit
- Anthony SguegliaSelf - Detective, Sex Crimes Unit
- Joseph OnoratoSelf - Asst. District Attorney
- Judd MartinSelf - Jesse's Best Friend in High School
Crew
- Andrew JareckiDirector
- Adolfo DoringDirector of Photography
- Richard HankinEditor
- Marc SmerlingProducer
- Andrew JareckiProducer
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Pairings
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