A documentary on a former Miss Wyoming who is charged with abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary.
A bizarre coda turns what begins as a playful exposé of the British media’s sensationalist excesses into a surreal voyage into a warped mind no reporter could invent.
It’s all here in Morris’s searing, often very funny look at the 1970s scandal that just kept on giving.
Riotously entertaining but with a serious point to make.
Terrifically entertaining.
It’s a thoroughly odd tale, though not necessarily with enough to it to sustain an entire movie that often contains too much superfluous detail.
A fascinating window on to a forgotten media world.
The truth will perhaps remain untold, but that isn't Morris's mission anyway, not when he has a discovery as garrulous and narcissistic as McKinney, now in her sixties and showing no sign of remorse, or indeed of sanity.
Providing a timely look at the destructive nature of chequebook journalism, he helps create some empathy for McKinney by showing how rival tabloids ruthlessly competed against one another to uncover and print the most salacious details of her story with little regard to the long-term impact it might have on those involved.
A compelling story told with Morris's usually flair. Still, hard not to think of it as a disappointment by the director's exalted standards and a missed opportunity to explore society's dysfunctional relationship with its media.
It’s a tough case and at the end of the film you’re no closer to knowing the truth of the situation, but more importantly the history of the media, the tabloids and the attitude towards women that leaks from the pages of the Murdoch empire is given back its history.
It's a bizarre "where are they now?" story of a rather unedifying kind, and one feels ashamed of laughing at this sad exhibitionist.
Joyce McKinney sues Errol Morris over Tabloid
Tabloid: Errol Morris interview
General release. Check local listings for show times.
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Friday November 18, 2011, until Thursday November 24, 2011. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
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