The docuseries that could torch Woody Allen’s legacy
“Is Woody Allen’s career finally toast?” asked Lorraine Ali in the Los Angeles Times. Across the three decades since the prolific filmmaker was accused of sexually abusing his daughter Dylan Farrow when she was 7, Hollywood has answered the question by awarding Allen an Oscar
(in 2012), a lifetime achievement award
(in 2014), and, until recently, the backing to make a new movie every year. But for Allen, now 85, “things might be about to change.” HBO’s new four-part docuseries Allen v. Farrow “threatens to burn what’s left of his career and legacy to the ground.” Folding in interviews from former babysitters, child-welfare workers, and prosecutors, the series mounts a “devastating” case against Allen that depicts a pattern of inappropriate behavior with Dylan prior to the alleged 1992 assault. It also shows how Allen manipulated his affair with thenpartner Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, to save his career. Many former fans won’t be able to stomach his movies again, “especially since so many are about young girls’ deep infatuation with older men.”
But Allen isn’t the sole focus of this documentary, said Jen Chaney in NYMag.com. Despite a title that references Allen’s ugly battle with Farrow, the HBO series is most valuable because it “places Dylan at the center of her own story.” Now 35, she speaks at length about her abuse, sharing, for example, how an overdoting Allen often crawled into bed with her wearing only his underwear. She also details the lasting effects of the assault, and at one point “has to pause because she involuntarily starts trembling.” We also see home video of a sad-eyed 7-year-old Dylan telling her mother that her father has “touched her privates.” After watching those clips, “the idea that the child was coached is harder to rationalize than it ever has been.” Though the series “leaves some questions unanswered,” it leaves no doubt of how easy it’s been for famous men to dismiss women and girls, “to dub someone like Mia Farrow a vindictive, scorned woman—and then cement that narrative in the press.”
Allen declined to be interviewed for the series, said Roger Moore in RogersMovie Nation.com, but he has denied the sexual assault allegation and has dismissed Allen v. Farrow as a “shoddy hit piece.” So what we get here is “only the prosecution’s side.” Neither Mia nor Dylan Farrow seems to have had to field even one unwelcome question. Still, the mountain of evidence the series gathers, and Allen’s “provable lies,” leave no doubt about what occurred. Whatever its flaws, Allen v. Farrow holds Allen to account in a way that the courts never did. “Yes, he’s canceled. And yes, the old creep still got off too easy.”