Charlie Says
Short description
Charlie Says follows three young women who took part in the notorious Manson murders and were sentenced to death, only for their sentences to be reduced to life in prison once capital punishment was abolished in California. Years into their incarceration, graduate student Karlene Faith is sent to teach them, and through her visits the film traces how each woman gradually confronts the reality of what she did. The story also reaches back to their time in Charles Manson's circle, examining how a man could draw ordinary followers into committing violence on his behalf.
Mary Harron directs from a screenplay by Guinevere Turner, the pair having previously worked together on American Psycho. The film sits between The Notorious Bettie Page and Dalíland in Harron's filmography, which also includes I Shot Andy Warhol. Hannah Murray, Sosie Bacon and Marianne Rendón play Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins, with Merritt Wever as Karlene Faith and Matt Smith as Charles Manson; Suki Waterhouse appears as Mary Brunner.
Released in 2019, the drama runs 110 minutes. Reception was mixed: critics gave it a moderate average across 73 reviews, while audiences on IMDb, from roughly 5,900 votes, and on TMDB, from around 246, landed at the same middling score as one another.
What's left behind the scenes
- In one scene, Charles Manson is kicked out of Sharon Tate's estate (played by Grace Van Dien). It is believed that this specific episode served as a trigger and led to the series of murders.
- The original ranch in California burned down in a fire in 1970. The film was shot at a nearby ranch, where Quentin Tarantino also filmed some scenes for his movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (2019).
- Matt Smith, who played Charles Manson, is approximately 183 centimeters tall. For filming, he had to adopt unnatural poses because Manson's actual height was just over 157 centimeters.
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