Movie Review: Boston Strangler
Boston Strangler is like David Fincher’s Zodiac and Maria Schrader’s She Said had a child: a tense, chilling newsroom procedural about a serial killer terrorizing a city and the two women who broke the story while facing adversity in the workplace.
Set in 1960s Boston, Boston Strangler introduces us to Loretta McLoughlin (Kiera Knightly) a writer for the Boston Record America who mainly writes reviews for new house appliances, as most women do at the Record America at that time. Loretta has become bored with doing this and wants to find a story that matters. She stumbles on a string of murders that have taken place in Boston that all seem similar. With some further investigating, Loretta believes that the murders have all been done by the same person and that Boston has a serial killer on their hands. With the help of fellow reports Jean Cole (Cary Coon), the two dive deep into the murders and the police work behind the investigation, which puts Loretta and Jean in hot water with the police, the newspaper, and the people of Boston.
Boston Strangler is written and directed by Matt Ruskin, his first film since 2017’s crime drama Crown Heights and Ruskin’s direction is a bit frustrating. He made some directorial decisions, mostly camera and shot composition decisions, that did not make sense and at times took me out of the movie. There are a number of scenes where Ruskin has a large portion of the shot blocked by something, like the back of a person’s head or a door frame. In one scene, Loretta is interviewing the mother of one of the victims and when Loretta is talking to the mother, half of the frame is covered by the back of the mother’s head. Why? It doesn’t make any sense in the movie. It’s aesthetically unpleasant and took my focus away from the action that was taking place once screen.
The most frustrating scenes in the film took place at Loretta’s home. There are several scenes that take place here, mostly of her in the kitchen with her family. These shots in the film look like they are done using a handheld camera because the frame of these shots is moving just slightly like Ruskin told his cinematographer to try and hold the camera as still as possible. The choice of handheld shots in these scenes didn’t work because they didn’t have an effect on the story. Throughout the film, Loretta’s marriage starts to deteriorate because of how much time she is spending on this story. Her husband, seemingly supportive at first, eventually became frustrated with her for spending so much time on the story and neglecting him and their children. If these shots started off with a stationary camera (or static shot), showing the marriage and family as strong and stable, and then used the handheld camera to show how the marriage has become rocky and not as strong as it once was, that would have made sense. There are also no other scenes that take place in the house that are shot handheld. Every other shot in the house is a static shot, even when the marriage is falling apart.
Luckily for Ruskin, his excellent screenplay and consistently tense tone kept me intrigued. Ruskin did a great job of balancing all the stories. There’s the story of Loretta and Jean cracking the story and digging for more information about the murders and the effects it all had on their lives. There is the murder mystery at hand, with the murders continuously happening and the police having no idea who could be doing it. We also see the effects this case had on the city of Boston and how two women struggled for legitimacy in a time of sexism. The movie spans years, but Ruskin smoothly transitions the time, which allows it to stay tight and compelling while also helping us understand how long and excruciating it was working on this story and this case.
Ruskin’s script is brought to life by a terrific ensemble. Knightley is good as Loretta. Knightley portrays her as a smart, determined woman even in the face of adversity while showing Loretta slowly cracking under the obsession of trying to figure out who the killer is faster than the police can. Knightley is accompanied by a terrific supporting cast. Carrie Coon is superb as the experienced and confident Jean, and I loved Alessandro Nivola as the exhausted detective heading the case, and Chris Cooper as Loretta’s challenging and passionate editor. We also get a slew of Boston character actors giving great one or two-scene performances.
Boston Strangler is a crime thriller that isn’t focused on the killer or the mystery but on the women who made Boston aware of the killer and brought to light the lack of police work on the case. It shows the importance of journalistic integrity and how Loretta and Jean broke the glass ceiling during a time when it seemed impossible. Despite some directorial struggles, Ruskin crafted a smart, gripping thriller led by an impressive ensemble.
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