CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS

The life of the Friedmans, a typical middle-class American family, came crashing down when the father and the youngest son were charged, in the late eighties, with the sexual abuse of young boys. The eldest son disputes the charges to this day, and he handed over the Friedman’s home movies to filmmaker Andrew Jarecki as evidence. Jarecki structures his film like a police investigation, exploring not only the life of one family, but of an entire community, a legal system and an era. By constantly changing his point of view and keeping the viewer in doubt up until the end, he demonstrates how difficult it is to capture the truth.