Boston Strangler

The true crime is rushing this story

Carrie Coon and Keira Knightley dig into the details of the case in Matt Ruskin’s Boston Strangler.

Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) is desperate to get off “the women’s beat”. A writer for Boston’s Record-American newspaper, she’s been stuck writing homemaking tips and style puff pieces while the men around her get juicy stories. But when she notices similarities in three murders, Loretta is finally given her chance: Prove there’s a connection between the murders and the story is hers.

Though Loretta gets her big break, the city of Boston is thrown into a panic. A series of brutal killings haunt the city between 1962 and 1964, and while the Boston Strangler becomes headline news, the police seem stymied in their investigation. Not content to merely report on the lack of movement in the case, Loretta and colleague Jean (Carrie Coon) start digging into the case themselves. The things they discover expose a problem that may be bigger than a serial killer.

Boston Strangler is a movie that should have been a limited series. The film wants to be many things, but ultimately it’s a collection of half-developed ideas. Writer/Director Matt Ruskin draws from better true crime, feminist treatises on workplace discrimination, and investigative journalist films to assemble a bunch of scenes that are vaguely recognizable, but just serve to remind you that there are better movies out there to watch. When Loretta ventures into a suspect’s house, the music and the cinematography pull directly from Zodiac. Any and all newsroom scenes are tinged with references to Spotlight and All the President’s Men. With so many references it’s a shame the movie never settles into a style of its own.

While Ruskin has a fascinating theory as to the Boston Strangler case, it’s left to the last 10 minutes and feels underbaked. Most of the film feels this way, with Ruskin rushing through themes and plot points. The Boston PD is said to have bungled the case but doesn’t dive into the truly horrifying depths the department sank to (including giving a popular psychic the case files and rights-violating interrogations). In fact, the face of the police department in the film is the affable Detective Conley (Alessandro Nivola, the only actor in the film brave enough to attempt a Boston accent). He’s an ally to Loretta and helps her by getting her an inside track on her investigation. It’s an odd choice to have this police best buddy in a movie that wants to highlight the incompetence of the department and its dangerous unwillingness to collaborate with other departments.

Even the killer, Albert DeSalvo (David Dastmalchian) who has been linked to at least one of the killings via DNA evidence, feels like an afterthought. For a movie with strong opinions on the evidence and crimes, Boston Strangler gives precious little time to the odd story of DeSalvo’s capture and completely ignores his escape.

Also missing from a movie that wants to focus on the importance of two female reporters who broke the case? Development of their main characters. We get a bit of insight into the life of Loretta, who learns the hard way that 60s husbands are only supportive of career women when they’re not being inconvenienced. But Jean is a bit of a question mark. She’s apparently been doing investigative work for years with a brilliant network of contacts, but Loretta, who’s obsessed with the idea of advancing her career past the women’s beat has apparently never heard of her. One would think that the only writer in Boston who’s managed to burst into the boy’s club would be a bigger deal. The two barely work together and only seem to bond at the end of the film. It’s an odd dynamic, and one that leaves the movie feeling hollow.

The film also seems to have no interest in examining the media’s role in sensationalizing the killings. They talk of the mass frenzy in Boston and the pressure to find a killer, but there’s never a discussion of what responsibility the papers had in perpetuating and sometimes exaggerating the story.

While Boston Strangler does have a moody atmosphere and an interesting theory, the whole thing feels like skimming a Wikipedia article instead of a deep dive into the case and what it meant for the city of Boston. Still, this film is likely a good place to start if you’re interested in the case, as is Richard Fleischer’s 1968 film.

Verdict: Ruskin offers a fascinating theory on the case, but doesn’t spend time convincing the viewer.

Boston Strangler is rated R and is available March 17 on Hulu.