Butler's Cinema Scene

Matt Smith as Charles Manson

“CHARLIE SAYS” My rating: B-

104 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The murderous Charles Manson family has been the subject of countless films, TV shows and documentaries. “Charlie Says” approaches the yarn from the point of view of one of his “girls.”

Written by Guinevere Turner and directed by Mary Harron (the same team who brought us “American Psycho” nearly 20 years ago), the film is less about Manson (portrayed here by “Dr. Who” veteran Matt Smith) than about Leslie “Lulu” Van Houten, a runaway teen who wandered into Charlie’s harem at the Spahn Ranch (a Western movie set just outside L.A.) and ended up a convicted killer on Death Row.

Lulu is portrayed by Hannah Murray, a Brit actress best known on these shores as Samwell Tarley’s wife Gilly on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Her role on GOT doesn’t begin to suggest the depth of her work here, in which her character evolves from moon-faced innocent to blood spattered loony who repeatedly stabbed one of the family’s victims.

In the “present” (about 1973) we find Lulu, Patricia “Katie” Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon) and Susan”Sadie” Atkins (Marianne Rendon) occupying separate cells in a California prison.  The state has recently outlawed executions,  but the three women are considered too dangerous to join the rest of the prison population, and so can look forward to living their lives alone own Death Row, able to call to one another but only rarely actually seeing  their comrades’ faces.

Enter a grad student (Merritt Wever) who convinces the prison administration to allow her to hold classes for the three.  During these sessions — ostensibly about women’s studies and other topics — the inmates talk about their lives with Charles Manson.  These scenes unfold in flashbacks.

Hannah Murray, Sosie Bacon and (bottom) Marianne Rendon

Turner’s screenplay nicely displays how Manson manipulates his followers. For starters, he has a keen eye for the needy individual looking for a father figure/lover/savior.  Women of strong will are not wecome.

Initially at least we see Charlie as his girls do — all peace and love with little hint of the criminal proclivities that landed him in prison. Like a good hippie he writes and sings songs, accompanying himself on guitar. He sends his followers out to raid grocery store dumpsters. (Lulu has to learn to ignore all meat products; Charlie has declared them verboten.)

Charlie has sex with his girls, yes, but so cannily pulls their emotional strings that many of them — even virgins like Lulu — are eager to give themselves to him.

As for the men in the merry band — like loser Tex Watson (Chace Crawford), who would become one of the gang’s most relentless killers  — Charlie ensures their loyalty by sharing the women. He even has his girls put out for a visiting motorcycle gang.

Things come to a head when record producer Terry Melcher (Bryan Adrian) declines to sign Charlie to his record label (this despite being serenaded not only by Manson but by a trio of topless backup singers).  Charlie goes bonkers, beats up one of the girls (“Charlie’s is just giving me what I need” she rationalizes) and begins inculcating in his followers his belief that a race war is inevitable.

Which brings us to the Tate/LaBianca murders that terrorized Los Angeles in 1969. The idea was to kill some rich people (“piggies”) and make it look like it was done by black terrorists.  By this time Lulu and the others had drunk so much of Charlie’s Kool-Aid that they no longer had a moral compass with which to object.

Happily Turner and Harron spare us most of the gruesome details, though enough remains to keep some audience members staring at their laps.

As for Leslie “Lulu” Van Houten, it takes years before she breaks free of Charlie’s spell and realizes just what she has done.

“Charlie Says” is well timed. Not only does it hit the screens well before Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming opus on the same topic, but it coincides with the  decision last month of California authorities to parole Van Houten, now 69.  Whether or not she is freed is up to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

One may question whether the film provides any new information or insights into this grim footnote of American criminal history.  But the acting is generally solid and director Harron effectively highlights the moral quagmire through which the Manson followers are dragged.

| Robert W. Butler