Dylan Farrow’s voice can be heard above all

HBO Allen V. Farrow is an overwhelming documentary series; its emotional intensity should be accompanied by a trigger warning. The documentary series examines allegations of sexual abuse against Oscar-winning director Woody Allen made by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992, when she was just 7 years old.. This case has been covered too much by the media for decades now, but Allen V. Farrow tries to get past the headlines by featuring intimate interviews with Dylan, his mother Mia Farrow (Allen’s former partner), brothers Ronan and Fletcher Farrow, as well as other family friends, witnesses, experts, journalists and investigators. For the most part, the documentary series is a powerful business. This gives Dylan a safe space to recount traumatic experiences, descends into the rabbit hole of the Farrow-Allen custody battle, and learns more about Allen’s marriage to Mia’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. More importantly, he acts as a damning mirror to the company that allowed Allen to thrive after the allegations became a major public scandal.

A Too much time is spent portraying Allen’s rise into a very popular figure in New York City and in the entertainment industry. In the larger series overview, it perhaps helps give some insight into how he was able to overcome the seriousness of the allegations to continue winning awards and making movies with famous actors. Butome inclusions seem superfluous, including special analysis of Allen films like 1979‘s Manhattan, and how they focused on her older character who appealed to younger women. This is a critical point – perhaps enough to make a completely separate journalistic project – but here it seems a bit closed fists, especially for viewers already familiar with Allen’s body of work.

But Allen V. Farrow is still a fascinating and often difficult watch. It’s on track with previous documentaries by filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick, from 2012 The invisible war, who examined sexual assault in the US military, through 2020 On disk, one of the most in-depth examinations of sexual harassment allegations against hip-hop mogul Russell Simons. The filmmakers, including Amy Herdy, have spent four years researching the series, and it shows. Allen V. Farrow frames his story with reams of legal documents, unpublished images and interviews with witnesses. There are plenty of videos from Dylan’s childhood, which show her playing with Allen in the pool, spending time at home, and traveling the world with other siblings. The pictures paint a picture of a supposedly happy moment, but, as Dylan says in his interview, there was allegedly more than what you see.

Allen V. Farrow follows somewhat of a chronological order, with the first two episodes following the growth of Allen and Mia Farrow’s career, relationship, and family. Mia, who hasn’t spoken too much publicly for several years, reflects on her relationship with Allen, calling him her deepest regret. “It’s my fault. I brought this guy into our family. There is nothing I can do to take this away,” Farrow says. In an agonizing scene, she describes the day she discovered revealing Polaroids of her daughter Soon-Yi in Allen’s apartment, when all hell finally broke loose.

The documentary goes on to provide granular details of the custody battle, as well as the police investigations against Allen in New York and Connecticut states. Throughout their custody trial and in media appearances (included in clips), Allen claimed that Mia trained Dylan to lie. He tried to paint his ex as a despised woman, an incredibly resonant example of gas lighting. Allen, Previn and Moses, his adopted son with Mia, declined to be interviewed for the docu-series. Moses is the only member of the large family to have officially sided with his father. Allen’s appearances in Allen V. Farrow are largely thanks to secretly recorded phone calls between him and Mia and audio clips from his 2020 audiobook, About nothing. The documentary examines the imperfect manner in which the Yale New Haven Clinic conducted the post-allegation assessment of Dylan. Frank Maco, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation at the time, is also questioned. It was his decision that kept the case from going to trial, as he didn’t think Dylan was fit to testify. No criminal charges have ever been laid against Allen.

The emotional anchor of Allen V. Farrow is Dylan, who finally manages to patiently tell his story. It’s heartbreaking to watch her recount the traumas she’s been through from a young age, starting with Allen’s possessiveness over her (corroborated here by interviews with different people: babysitters, a guardian, brothers and sisters). sisters, family friends, his mother). At one point, she has a visceral physical reaction similar to a panic attack upon thinking about it all. These are not easy things to remember, let alone talk about and be judged by the public. But the filmmakers do an admirable job of giving him the time and space to discuss it. The most moving part comes from the videos of child Dylan that Mia filmed for two days, in which she describes details of the sexual assault she accuses Allen of. Fair warning: The description may be graphic.

But Allen V. Farrow doesn’t want to define Dylan just by his past. “I’m tired of feeling like he matters more than me,” she says towards the end, while reflecting on why she started speaking out more at the start of the #MeToo era. Allen V. Farrow It also ends up being a scathing story about celebrity cult and celebrity culture, which inevitably creates a landscape that impacts the administration of justice in cases like this. Ultimately, it’s an intriguing documentary series that will interest those involved in the case to reexamine it through the lens of four convincing, often uncomfortable episodes.