Ghislaine Maxwell: Poder e Perversão

6.7 stars.

I don't rate documentaries above a 7 usually, because the overall experience must be taken into account with all my ratings. A documentary is very informative, but it's not something I will watch more than once, at least not 99% of them. There are very few I'd re-watch. Anyways, enough of that. The point is any great documentary will only provide a limited amount of entertainment for me, and even with all the great information, I must still be entertained. I watch TV for that reason primarily. And so, is this a good documentary compared to most? I suppose it would be if it was something fresh, but we already knew all this stuff, it was just a matter of time. And so this documentary is average at best, but not too bad.

Ghislaine was probably the real monster behind it all. She coordinated all of this for him, sure he was a very bad man, but he was not necessarily the mastermind. Or, maybe he was the mastermind, but she was the person who made his wishes come to fruition. He needed a charming woman to put his ideas into motion.

We can see from a very young age that she was this sort of an organizer. Her friends talk about her being so charismatic and the life of the party and she knew how to throw parties and get people together for a purpose. When she had an agenda, she knew how to make it happen and how to put things together and she did it for Jeff, because she wanted his approval maybe, but that's no excuse.

This felt like a re-hash of another documentary about the same woman that I watched a few months ago, with hardly anything new in terms of scandalous revelations. While I don't doubt that Ghislaine Maxwell deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison, it's difficult to ignore the nagging feeling that she has been hung out to dry as a scapegoat. There are many super-rich individuals who are not being named even if we can guess at the identities of a handful of them.

So I found this latest Filthy Rich 'documentary' a total anti-climax, although in fairness it would be interesting if you haven't seen any previous offerings from other production companies.

And I wonder if I will live long enough to see the as yet unmade Filthy Rich documentary that, for once, really exposes the scandals we haven't been told yet. That would be worth watching.

I'm not saying she didn't do the things she's accused (and was ultimately found guilty) of doing, but these testimonials from prior associates and "survivors" don't really tell that story.

They selectively tell the story of a person who, like frankly a lot of people in the 90s/80s/70s, was riding the 'Super Freak' train.

There's the adult store clerk "survivor" who Maxwell hit on/pursued/made uncomfortable with salacious advances; the adult massage therapist who, because she was abused as a child, found herself unable to say 'no' to Maxwell's sexual advances; a group of adults to whom Maxwell proposed a party game where blindfolded male guests were to fondle the breasts of female guests.

Discomfiting, inappropriate, kinky, yes ... but criminal?

Again. Not saying she didn't do those other things. After all, she was found guilty in 2021 of child sex trafficking.

I just found this documentary to be pretty thin.

I quit watching after the photographer's testimonial. He tells the story of a photo shoot Maxwell arranged to promote her ocean conservancy efforts. The shoot takes place on the beach and Maxwell shows up wearing her 'save-the-ocean' tee shirt and ... gasp ... stiletto heels!

The photographer bows his head pensively and sighs.

'If only he'd recognized the signs,' his sad, faraway gaze seems to say.

Interviews with ALL these "ex" friends of Ghislaine coming out now? Hmmm, where were they when all this stuff was going down? Now all of a sudden every ex friend of hers wants to tell their story. Pretty sure these people were either involved or knew what was going on! SO many "ex" friends talking out NOW 🙄. Give me a break, they knew and are just as disgusting as her. They even say they saw "signs" but did nothing. Seriously?! These are people that knew her VERY well and they're just now coming out saying stuff? They knew the whole time and were probably a part of the whole thing. They're just "finally" speaking out now to make themselves seem innocent.

There is a very sensitive subject to this documentary, which admittedly is not the first, and I wholly acknowledge that. However it has had the benefit of access to some names more closely linked to the subject matter than some other documentaries.

For those in the UK, this entire scandal has been an eye opener, and Ghislane Maxwell is only part of the story, however this doc is supposed to delve deep into her psyche but I don't think it succeeds. I personally found it mostly shallow in that respect. I don't think we found any true answers. It goes without saying our disgust on what she was wholly involved in, and this documentary really I felt struggled to give us anything new to spear her with. Her psyche wasn't investigated enough.

There are a number of very good aspects, and my due respect to the victims and those who assisted them in their journey to win justice. I just felt that there was more to say and provide information, and this documentary just felt as if when it tried to attempt to give an overview of Ghislane Maxwell it never said anything what isn't much already known or was just guesswork. I just feel there is more disturbingly to this story.

I assume legal reasons limits what could be delved into, which is frustrating but as long as she is not made some icon, then the better for it. I feel this documentary thankfully avoided that and did well in that par.

In any case, I found this not the most helpful documentary. She is (understandably & correctly) a new public hate figure, and she will hopefully serve the rest of her life behind bars. There are though others involved still to be challenged on their involvement and so this should not all stop here. To her victims, my respect to you all, and I hope further justice for you and everyone affected.