Weinstein, the one horror movie that Hollywood failed to make
One look at the bloated, grey, pockmarked face of film producer Harvey Weinstein would surely have told anyone what kind of man he was.
He looked like a monkfish, one of those deep-sea monstrosities from Blue Planet with bulging eyes and rows of tin tacks for teeth.
But all the women he allegedly lured into hotel rooms and the men who did his bidding told the same story, on Untouchable: The Rise And Fall Of Harvey Weinstein (BBC2). They were so intent on their own careers, they didn’t see the patterns of sexual abuse. That’s what you call ‘blind ambition’.
There were strong parallels here to the Jeffrey epstein case, where numerous powerful public figures were apparently oblivious while the billionaire financier allegedly committed daily sex crimes.
One actress who claimed she was subjected to a vile assault by the former Miramax boss explained what kept her in Hollywood: ‘It was a very exciting environment, you were going out to dinner with Sean Connery and Leonardo DiCaprio.’ Well, that must make everything worthwhile.
This documentary (overlong at 90 minutes) appeared unaware of how shallow the movie world looks from the outside, how self-serving and narcissistic. Actors, writers
and directors repeatedly tried to excuse Weinstein’s rampant thuggery by citing his ‘genius’.
Film producers are never geniuses. They’re just chancers with too much ego to have real jobs and too little talent to be stars.
The director of the programme, Ursula Macfarlane, bought in without hesitation to the notion that films are Great Art and thus Weinstein was a Flawed Artist. To reflect this, she filled the screen with self-consciously arty shots, including blurred footage of cars streaming past on a freeway.
There were moody shots of stairwells, hotel corridors and avenues of palm trees in Beverly Hills — selfindulgent rubbish that padded out her investigation so much that any real insight into how a serial sexual predator operates was smothered.
Most of the stories seemed to have important information missing. One journalist recounted how he and a colleague were threatened at a party and chucked in to the street. He managed to tape the encounter, and we were able to hear Weinstein’s foul-mouthed bluster, but the story was never reported, he said. Why not? This vague hint of bribery, corruption, collusion or blackmail in the U.S. media was never followed up.
It seems Weinstein’s career may be over, but a lot of other people are still untouchable . . . and this documentary had no intention of trying to lay a glove on them.
no gloves were required in Sanditon (ITV), where moody Sidney Parker (Theo James) was relieving his tensions with a spot of bare-knuckle boxing.
Cynical viewers might have wondered whether this was just an excuse for Theo to whip his shirt off, but that’s uncharitable — he doesn’t need an excuse. He spent the final scene wading bare-bottomed at the sea’s edge, while stray parasols preserved just a sliver of modesty.
Despite all the male nudity, it is Anne Reid who dominates this Georgian costume drama, loosely adapted by Andrew Davies from an unfinished fragment by Jane Austen.
She’s gloriously rude, appallingly racist and yet almost likeable at moments — conveying a sense that underneath all the spite and cruelty there’s a lonely woman who longs for a friend.
everyone else is over-acting madly, even the rotten pineapple at the centre piece of her dining table...which wasn’t merely mouldy but crawling with maggots.
CONFLICT OF THE WEEKEND: June and her army of rebels in red pelted soldiers with rocks at the climax of The Handmaid’s Tale (C4). Well, they’ve had lots of practice stoning sinners to death. And what a cliffhanger! I can’t wait for the next series.