Producers: Ridley Scott, Kevin J. Walsh, Michael Pruss, Josey McNamara and Tom Ackerley   Director: Matt Ruskin   Screenplay: Matt Ruskin   Cast: Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola, David Dastmalchian, Morgan Spector, Bill Camp, Chris Cooper, Robert John Burke, Rory Cochrane, Peter Gerety, Luke Kirby, Stephen Thorne, John Lee Ames, Therese Plaehn, Ryan Winkles and Greg Vrotsos   Distributor: Hulu

Grade: C+

When Richard Fleischer’s thriller “The Boston Strangler” was released in 1968, it presented the murder of thirteen women in the area of Beantown between 1962 and 1964 as solved.  Tony Curtis starred as Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to the killings, but since the confession could not be used in court because of a deal negotiated by his attorney (F. Lee Bailey), was convicted on other charges and sentenced to life in prison, where he was murdered in 1973.

Fleischer’s movie was criticized as sensationalistic at the same, and it certainly fiddled with the facts of the case as detailed in the 1966 book by Gerold Frank on which it was loosely based.  This new take on the case by writer-director Matt Ruskin could hardly be called sensationalistic; its mood is unrelievedly grim, solemn and understated.  Its major departure, however, is its revisionism.  Doubts about DeSalvo’s guilt have circulated since his arrest and conviction, and Ruskin seizes on them to construct a tale of conspiracy and greed that resulted in the imprisonment of a man who might not have been an innocent (it admits, in one of the closing captions, that 2013 DNA evidence indicates that DeSalvo was probably at the scene of the last of the murders), but was most likely not the perpetrator in all of them.

And as to heroes, here they’re not the Boston cops, most of whom are portrayed as corrupt, incompetent or simply apathetic under embattled Commissioner McNamara (Bill Camp), or the special state investigator John Bottomly, who was at the forefront Fleischer’s film (played by icon Henry Fonda) but is here relegated to a virtual walk-on (he’s played by Steve Routman), but the two female reporters who were instrumental in linking the murders and tracking down suspects.  In that respect the picture resembles Fleischer’s less that it does Maria Schrader’s “She Said,” about the Washington Post journalists whose work resulted in the downfall of Harvey Weinstein.

Unfortunately, it’s not the equal of that picture, because it lacks tension and excitement and ends with a highly speculative conclusion that strains for profundity it fails to reach.  But it does offer a credible portrait of the two women—neophyte Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) and veteran Jean Cole (Carrie Coon)—who struggled with the sexism of the day and the demands of their home lives (Morgan Spector plays Loretta’s supportive husband and Therese Plaehn her critical sister-in-law, while Stephen Thorne is Jean’s more distant spouse) to push the investigation forward despite initially halfhearted support from their editor Jack MacLaine (Chris Cooper) and strident opposition from the paper’s publisher Eddie Holland (Robert John Burke).  Both actresses do good work, with Knightley’s reserved but determined demeanor contrasting nicely with Coon’s brusque, extrovert manner.

McLaughlin is, however, able to build some rapport with a detective (Alessandro Nivola) disenchanted with the department, and gradually she and Jean identify some possible suspects—a boss who’s gotten his secretary pregnant; David Marsh (Ryan Winkles), a sinister young man with a vendetta against his ex-girlfriend; and DeSalvo (David Dastmalchian)—only to have each of them apparently cleared.  But in time the facts supposedly exonerating DeSalvo are swept away, and Bailey (Luke Kirby) works a deal for him to confess to all the murders, with the proviso that his admission cannot be used against him in court.

McLaughlin’s belief in his guilt will be shaken a few years later, however, when she’s contacted by a Michigan detective (Rory Cochrane) with information about a suspiciously similar series of killings in Ann Arbor, an episode Ruskin actually began the film with before flashing back to 1962 Boston.  That, along with deep dives into files of various kinds and an interview with a former inmate (Jon Lee Ames), leads Loretta to a startling conclusion about DeSalvo’s confession, one that involves Bailey and another of his clients, George Nassar (Greg Vrotsos), as well as some others to whom we’ve already been introduced—a conclusion underpinned by the general attitudes toward women at the time.

“Strangler” is drenched in a dark period atmosphere, courtesy of John P. Goldsmith’s production design, Arjun Bhasin’s costumes, and Ben Kutchins’ cinematography, the moody visuals accentuated by Ruskin’s stately pacing, Anne McCabe’s unhurried editing, and Paul Leonard-Morgan’s brooding score. 

All of that, along with the nicely complementary performances of Knightley and Coon and solid work from the supporting cast, make the film an intriguing take on the case. And yet like so many revisionist investigations of notorious crimes, it can offer no definitive closure—all one need do to confirm that is to look into the so-called Michigan Murders of 1967-69, which Ruskin assumes to be connected to the Boston killings; it’s far better at pointing out the deficiencies of the “accepted” solution than in constructing a persuasive alternative. 

In the end “Boston Strangler” is no more convincing than “The Boston Strangler,” though Ruskin’s discreet treatment of the violence makes it far less lurid than its predecessor, even though made more than half a century later. 

Producers: Piers Tempest, Robert Connolly and David Barron   Director: Frances O’Connor   Screenplay: Frances O’Connor   Cast: Emma Mackey, Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Alexandra Dowling, Adrian Dunbar, Amelia Gething and Gemma Jones   Distributor: Bleecker Street

Grade: C+

A high school student tasked with writing an essay on Emily Brontë is forewarned not to use Frances O’Connor’s florid quasi-biographical film as a source of information:  it’s riddled with factual errors, culminating in depicting the appearance of “Wuthering Heights” with Brontë’s name on the title page (it was published under a pseudonym, of course) and in saying that it prompted a celebratory party on the part of her family and friends and led to her sister Charlotte’s decision to write “Jane Eyre” (which was actually published two months earlier).  And that’s merely the tip of the iceberg.

So long as accuracy is a negligible concern, however, you might be drawn to actress O’Connor’s admittedly highly imaginative but well-acted film.  Though those who put a premium on adherence to the historical record will be reluctant to tolerate its flights of fancy, and others may simply object to its embrace of the most overwrought tropes of period romantic drama in the service of a modern message of female empowerment, most viewers should agree that, whatever its flaws, at least “Emily” isn’t dull.

It is rather predictable, however, in portraying Brontë as a woman of exceptional intelligence trapped in a milieu of stifling social conventions and expectations, whose genius nonetheless finally triumphed against all obstacles.  O’Connor also seems committed to the old bromide about “writing what you know,” so her plot addresses the much-discussed question of how Emily, coming from so confined a background, could possibly have written a tale of such passion and tragedy by suggesting that she must have had a fervid secret romance that ended tragically.  (The wild imagination she and her sisters exhibited in the fictional worlds they created to amuse themselves as girls apparently isn’t enough to explain Heathcliff.) 

The fact that the standard biographies of Brontë mention no such affair isn’t a problem—what little is definitely known of Emily’s life is fairly rote stuff, and the undisputed facts can easily be made to fit with the elaborate scenario that O’Connor’s screenplay provides.  One needn’t gravitate toward the opinion of some writers that Emily had an incestuous relationship with her brother Branwell to find a candidate for a clandestine lover; ready to hand is William Weightman, the curate of Emily’s father Rev. Patrick Brontë.  Weightman is known to have been very attractive to the women of the parish.  In fact, there is some slight indication that he might have had a relationship with one of the Brontë sisters.  But it was Anne, not Emily.

In O’Connor’s version, however, it’s Emily (played by Emma Mackey) with whom Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) has a torrid romance, sparked in part by their being thrown together when Patrick (Adrian Dunbar) asks his assistant to tutor his daughter in French.  Their contact blossoms into love, which they must indulge with the greatest care in order to protect both Weightman’s position and both of their reputations.  They meet clandestinely in a remote, abandoned cottage.

Meanwhile Emily remains the eccentric among her sisters, the older Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) and the younger Anne (Amelia Getting).  They and their wayward brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead) are under the close supervision of their widowed father and their Aunt Branwell (Gemma Jones), who became Patrick’s housekeeper after the death of his wife (and her sister) Maria.  But while Charlotte and Anne are docile and obedient in following Patrick’s plans for their futures, Emily and Branwell are sources of concern—he for his dissolute ways and she for her peculiarities.  O’Connor depicts Emily going into a virtual trance while playing a game the sisters have invented, practically assuming the persona of Maria during one of their nighttime sessions, and otherwise exhibiting a vaguely independent streak.  She also joins Branwell in his increasingly radical ideas—like thinking for oneself—and his reckless conduct, like spying on their neighbors at night.

There’s no doubt that Emily was close to Branwell, but O’Connor portrays their relationship in extravagant style, showing them gamboling about the Yorkshire moors as well as sneaking out to peer through the windows of nearby houses from the bushes—and getting caught doing it.  She also makes Branwell the source of the tragic ending of Emily’s affair with Weightman—though precisely how won’t be revealed here.  (It does, however, have the merit of chronological plausibility.)

Setting aside the many errors of factual detail and the exceedingly speculative plot elements, it’s entirely possible to enjoy “Emily” as a specimen of English period melodrama.  It’s handsomely mounted—the locations are eye-catching, the production design (by Steve Summersgill) and costumes (by Michael O’Connor) apt, and the cinematography (by Nanu Segal) quite attractive.  Sam Sneade’s editing is rather stately but certainly adequate, while Abel Korzeniowski contributes a score that italicizes the tensions roiling beneath the ostensibly decorous surfaces.

And O’Connor, a good actress herself, elicits performances that fit her construction of Brontë’s life, however dubious it might be.  Most of the cast—Jackson-Cohen, Dowling, Dunbar, Gething and Jones—contribute the sort of controlled, reserved turns characteristic of such period fare, but Mackey and Whitehead are more extravagant, their roles inviting moments of ecstasy and abandon that set them apart.

Given the enigmatic nature of Brontë’s life, it’s fair to speculate about the incentives behind her writing. But even with the clandestine romance O’Connor postulates, “Emily” is basically just a medium-grade Masterpiece Theatre episode.