The Fundy Film Society

Capturing the Friedmans

Watching Andrew Jarecki’s riveting non-fiction drama is like watching a slow-motion replay of a multi-car pileup; you know it’s headed for disaster, but there’s no way you can stop watching. On the surface, the Friedmans were a typical 1980s American family. Living in Great Neck, Long Island, Arnold was a well-respected teacher, Elaine was a dedicated mother, and their children Seth, Jesse, and David were model students. But one Thanksgiving, that happy facade came to a crashing halt. After the local police discovered Arnold had engaged in the buying and selling of child pornography, they questioned several students who attended his computer classes in the Friedman basement. What they revealed would shock the community, and destroy the Friedman family forever. The subsequent investigation and trial uncovered even deeper hidden secrets at an alarming rate, creating a rift between Arnold and Elaine that would never be reconciled. Jarecki uses present day interviews with Elaine, Jesse, and David, as well as Arnold’s brother Howard, to provide some sort of insight on the situation, but it backfires, for everyone has a different story to tell. And then there is actual home video footage of the family in the midst of the hurricane, which gives the film an eerie, voyeuristic charge.

“To begin your career with a masterpiece is so remarkable a feat that one can only hope Jarecki finds another subject as rich as this family, which was obsessed with itself but needed a filmmaker to begin to see itself at all.” – David Denby, The New Yorker

“A stirring examination of truth at odds with perception, the high price of privacy in the media era and the blinding veil of blood ties.” – Scott Foundas, Variety

“This extraordinary film refracts truth through the prism of memory, until what you get is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, full of sacrifice and betrayal.” – Jami Bernard, New York Daily News

“Ranks among the most harrowing and heartbreaking films ever made about the destruction of an American family.” – Robert Wilonsky, Dallas Observer