Charlie Says, review: Matt Smith is miscast as Charles Manson in this innovative, frustrating film

Cert TBC, 104 min. Dir: Mary Harron; Starring: Matt Smith, Hannah Murray, Merritt Wever, Annabeth Gish, Sosie Bacon, Chace Crawford, Suki Waterhouse, Grace Van Dien 

It feels gut-churningly apt that the director of American Psycho has tackled one of the definitive cases of late-20th-century American psychosis: the Manson Family murders, in which members of the now notorious commune slaughtered seven strangers in August 1969, including the actress Sharon Tate. Three of the four cult members present at Tate’s murder were women in their early twenties – and Mary Harron’s film, written by her American Psycho collaborator Guinevere Turner, cannily trains its focus on this trio, treating their connection with Charles Manson, played by Matt Smith, as an extreme form of abusive relationship.

Premiering at the Venice Film Festival 10 months before the expected arrival of Quentin Tarantino’s own forthcoming Manson film, and taking what is presumably a strikingly different tack, Charlie Says splits its running time between the lead-in to the murders and the women’s lives in prison three years later, as they reflect on the killings at a discussion group hosted by the writer Karlene Faith (Merritt Wever). The film takes its title from the trio’s go-to phrase whenever Karlene gently questions their ongoing loyalty: all kinds of deranged fabrications are accepted as fact, from hidden messages about a coming race war on the White Album to bottomless pits in the desert, purely because they were Manson-endorsed.

This works well as far as it goes – and the British actress Hannah Murray impresses as one of the three, Leslie Van Houten, whose arrival at the Family’s dilapidated “movie ranch” in rural Los Angeles county serves as the film’s own entry point into Manson’s twisted world. But there is a problem: as Manson himself, Smith is horribly miscast, with none of the magnetism or menace required to make the young women’s devotion feel like something more complex than a deeply stupid choice.

“Getting hit by the man you love is no different to making love to him,” one of his female followers explains to another, after Manson repeatedly slaps her at dinner – a line that carries a horrible sub-zero chill. But the brainwashing required to bring the group to this point– and which is fundamentally important to this particular treatment of the Manson story – is taken as read.

Instead, this Manson frequently cuts a pathetic figure, most notably in a scene in which he auditions for the producer Terry Melcher (Brian Adrian), in the hope of winning some kind of recording contract. The scene should have crackled with cognitive dissonance: he gives an obviously dire performance, while at his side, three female followers go-go dance topless, all believing stardom is a dead cert. But instead it plays as flatly desperate, and the song feels interminable – a David Brentian cringe-along delivered in a fringed leather suit. 

The men on the camp’s fringes prove more interesting, particularly Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson (James Trevena-Brown), shown happily indulging in the free love made available to him at the ranch – by Manson decree, of course – without troubling himself as to why the girls might be offering it. As for the murders themselves, they occur largely off-camera, although Leslie’s involvement is shown graphically, and has a nasty, self-destructive charge which you can’t help but wish the rest of Charlie Says had more thoroughly unpicked.

This is an innovative, occasionally provocative, often frustrating film, but one whose perspectives on guilt and victimhood offer a new angle on a notorious case.

Charlie Says premiered at the Venice Film Festival this afternoon. A UK release has not yet been set.