Tabloid

Errol Morris hits a home run with "Tabloid," letting the main subject, Joyce McKinney, pontificate for long stretches at a time; and Ms. McKinney never disappoints. This is a sad and compelling news story from 1977, well known in Britain as "The Manacled Mormon" case. An American Mormon missionary claimed to be abducted and raped by Ms. McKinney and what follows is a tragic but often funny documentary that is truly stranger than fiction. I can't find better adjectives(used by someone interviewed) than barking mad to describe this delusional, obsessed, and sorry figure.

The missing element is Kirk Anderson, the alleged victim and abductee, as he refused to be interviewed. Director Morris has a field day with Mormon beliefs, from magic underwear to planets ruled by deceased true believers. The Salt Lake City elders will not be pleased with this film. I highly recommend it to everyone else.

Even if you know all the lurid details about the Joyce McKinney sex in chains saga, it is still well worth it to listen to the protagonist tell her side of the story. It would have taken a lot of courage/narcissism for anyone to agree to be interviewed for a documentary after going through what Ms. McKinney went through, but what is even more astounding is just how self assured and confident she was throughout the interview.

Ms. McKinney acquitted herself well and leaves the viewer with a sense of her human frailties as she tells the story of her remarkable life. There are those who would condemn her or write her off as sick and demented -- and even in this documentary it is possible to see where these people are coming from -- but the film also presents another side of the woman, one who loved absolutely so much so that she thought nothing of cloning a dog she cared about.

There will probably never be another Joyce McKinney. If you wrote a movie script that was true to her life, it would probably be rejected as too far fetched and absurd. Watch this documentary and judge for yourself what sort of person Joyce McKinney is. I think that is all she would ask of you.

Greetings again from the darkness. Truth is often stranger than fiction. But what happens when the truth is elusive? Well "Tabloid" proves it doesn't matter ... strange is still strange! Superb documentarian Errol Morris serves up his most 'whacked out' profile yet.

Mr. Morris has described his work in documentary films as falling into one of two categories: 'Completely Whacked Out' and 'Politically Concerned'. The latter category includes his brilliant films "The Fog of War" and "The Thin Blue Line". The 'whacked' category includes "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control" and "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A Leuchter". I highly recommend any and all of these.

This latest subject, Joyce McKinney, may not be immediately familiar to you. In 1977, she became infamous as the key player in the British tabloid storyline named "Case of the Manacled Mormon". She was accused of following a Mormon missionary to the U.K., kidnapping him, handcuffing him to a bed, and using him as her sex slave. To really understand the story, one must realize the lack of knowledge that the British press had towards the Mormon church at the time. They truly viewed it as a cult.

Ms. McKinney has never stopped her accusations that the Mormon leaders created a cult environment, and brain washed men and women alike. Her stance is a huge part of why her story, or stories, are impossible to take seriously. Her story is that she and Kirk Anderson fell in love and the church forced them apart by shipping Anderson off on a missionary trip to England. Mr. Anderson has refused all interview requests since his release, but he claimed he requested the trip to escape the obsessive clutches of Joyce.

The amazing thing that I noticed while watching this film is that I didn't care about the truth. Even the filmmaker, Mr. Morris, doesn't seem to care about the truth. The fascination is with the personality of the enigmatic Joyce McKinney. Her direct interviews are mesmerizing. When she states "a person can tell a lie so many times that they believe it's true", we have to laugh outloud. Her stories are so convoluted, yet told with such conviction.

I certainly don't wish to spoil the entertainment value afforded by her first person story telling, so I will concentrate on the presentation by Mr. Morris. He seems to really enjoy the tabloid approach and uses graphics and imagery to add detail and structure. His use of the score is highly effective and quite unusual for a documentary. He provides the stage for this former Miss Wyoming to perform. And perform she does!

For comparison purposes, I have nothing. My first thought was a train wreck. Then a circus side show. Neither of those do justice to this unique story of a most unusual woman presented by a visionary filmmaker. All I can say is, you must see it to believe it ... or not.

Errol Morris has throughout his filmmaking career, found some interesting subjects. From the groundbreaking The Thin Blue Line (1988) - that actually produced evidence enough to release a man from death row, - to The Fog of War's (2003) view of modern American political history according to Robert McNamara (reviewed here by Tom previously). And with Tabloid, he has yet again discovered a story that defies belief.

Joyce McKinney was former Miss Wyoming. She became a British tabloid darling in the late 1970's when she came over to the UK and kidnapped a young man, holding him hostage. The film tells the story of McKinney's various obsessions; she became obsessed with a young Mormon missionary, but his faith was compromised and, as far as Joyce was concerned, the Mormon church stole him away from her, taking him to England to restore his faith.

The levels of obsession are exposed progressively throughout the film. Joyce's fixation on this one person who she claims to love unconditionally is actually quite sad. She states late on in the film that there is only one love, and she loves the Mormon, and will love no other. This stubborn focus on one love has seen through to her old age, as she fills this love with a dog. The obsession of one love is also propagated in her love of her dog, that once dead, she spends thousands of dollars to get it cloned in South Korea.

As with all Morris documentaries, this is a little gem, and is never outwardly judgemental of it's subject matter. It is a tragic tale, and whilst it has been Joyce's own choice, her strong morals are quite touching. However, strip all sympathy aside, and she is simply mental!!

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Some people are serial fantastists, or serial self-publicists: it can be hard to tell the difference. Errol Morris' entertaining film 'Tabloid: Sex in Change' will seem familiar to anyone whose seen the (altogether more serious) film 'True Lies': in both cases, someone collaborates with a contemporary film-maker to tell "their story", even though the film-maker is able to simultaneously compile a large body of evidence to suggest that this story is utter tosh. The protagonists of both films could be considered con-artists, but if so, neither of them are exactly very good: in taking part in these films, they manage not to control the narrative, but to destroy themselves (although, if self-publicity is the aim, they do succeed, albeit in a peculiar fashion). Joyce McKinney's story (both the real one, and the one that she tells) is straightforwardly bizarre; while the linked tale of the behaviour of tabloid newspapers is predictably depressing, although one can't help but wonder whether or not Morris would have done better to let sleeping dogs lie (something McKinney didn't do when she had her dead pet cloned) rather than give the whole affair another publicising blast of the oxygen. It's hard to draw many conclusions from such a weird tale about the state of our society, or even about the interior workings of McKinney's mind; yet it's also impossible not to be entertained, albeit in a prurient way, by the extraordinary details of her tale.