But if everything that came across as blatant, horrifying and unavoidably grotesque in the documentary is here merely unsettling, and cloaked in a superficial haze of ’70s nostalgia, it’s easy to go from “How the heck could they have been so dumb?” to “How could they possibly have known?” And when two of the figures being most clearly manipulated are producers on your series, it reads as self-serving instead of revelatory.Ī Friend of the Family is playing around with a contrast between the incomprehensible behaviors at the center of the story - FBI agents don’t even know the term “pedophile” yet - and the sheltered space in which the action is happening. It’s a smart tactic to keep the show from ever feeling exploitative. Little exchanges take on intimate weight, resulting in a series about ongoing sex crime that would not, in terms of what you actually see on-camera, be too risqué to air on broadcast TV. Hittman, who last directed 2020’s potent Never Rarely Sometimes Always, emphasizes small gestures and reactions, with the camera seemingly capturing every sidelong glance or grazed touch. The Brobergs became mired in this situation because B was a conman in addition to being a predator - the role takes perfect advantage of Lacy’s innate duality, wherein he’s best cast as either the most decent or most demented person in any room - and because, as Jan’s intro also tells us, it was a different time. Still, nine hours of self-justification is a lot, and that’s where A Friend of the Family spends most of its time. Though Abducted director Skye Borgman is a consulting producer on the Peacock series, Jan’s preamble might as well be, “OK, so now here’s the version where you can actually empathize with us.” It situates A Friend of the Family as an “authorized” victim’s story, an important consideration in the always problematic true-crime space. Jan and Mary Ann Broberg are producers here, with Jan introducing the first episode from a soundstage with a reminder that however unbelievable the plot may be, it all really happened. Consider this to be the story from the inside. The whole thing baffles both the legal system and the religious community.īrother B, as he asks to be called, is a charismatic sociopath and the easy villain, but more than a few viewers of the documentary were nearly as outraged by Bob and Mary Ann, parents whose obliviousness and permissiveness was, from the outside, impossible to countenance. It’s hard to know who would ever watch A Friend of the Family without seeing Abducted in Plain Sight or reading Jan’s memoir S tolen Innocence first, so it may or may not be spoiler-y to reveal that Robert’s real obsession is with Jan his multi-year grooming process - with the help of aliens named Zeta and Zethra - comes to implicate the entire Broberg family and he abducts Jan twice. The Brobergs seem like the perfect Mormon clan, and they attract the attention of new arrivals Robert (Jake Lacy) and Gail (Lio Tipton) Berchtold - also Mormon - and their own smiling kids. Set in Idaho in the 1970s, A Friend of the Family focuses on the Brobergs - florist Bob (Colin Hanks, a rare weak link lost under a bald cap), housewife Mary Ann (Anna Paquin) and their brood of smiling children, including preteen aspiring actress Jan (Hendrix Yancey for four episodes and then McKenna Grace). I thought it worked completely on The Act, rarely on Candy and comes down somewhere in the middle in A Friend of the Family. The series was created by Nick Antosca and bears some resemblance to his Hulu minis The Act and Candy, relying on duration and bad hairpieces to find a subtle heart in stories that otherwise could tend toward the sensationalistic. With director Eliza Hittman setting an admirably restrained initial tone (she directs the first and third episodes), the show is drawn out far past the limits of my interest, and its insights plateau early, but at least it’s sensitively told and its small ensemble is mostly superb. Cast: Anna Paquin, Jake Lacy, Colin Hanks, Lio Tipton, Hendrix Yancey, Mckenna Graceīased on six episodes sent to critics, A Friend of the Family is simultaneously doomed by that structural choice and close to a best-case scenario.
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