JIMMY SAVILE: A british horror story
For decades, Jimmy Savile was Britain’s undisputed sweetheart. Starting off as a DJ, the man hosted two popular shows — Jim’ll Fix It and Top of the Pops — and soon became much more than just a television personality. He raised huge amounts of charity, volunteered at hospitals across the world, sometimes even functioning as a ward boy, hobnobbed with the Pope and did duty as Prince Charles’ adviser. Jimmy Savile the philanthropist — some described him as “Santa Claus meets Jesus Christ” —was known to all. A British Horror Story, a new documentary on Netflix, uncovers Jimmy Savile the pedophile.
Playing out over just two episodes of more than an hour each, this is one of the shortest in the genre, but one which delivers a wallop. The first episode — through a blend of talking heads and a large amount of footage featuring Savile himself — establishes how Savile, a mixture of affable and eccentric, endeared himself to millions.
The second continues in that vein for a fair bit, with whispers of how Jimmy “liked young girls” gaining momentum but being shushed down immediately. It’s only after his death in 2011 that hundreds of women (and even a few men) came out to claim how Savile had sexually abused them when they were young.
That this true crime documentary is an unsettling watch is an understatement. That Savile managed to get away with such heinous crimes, often laughing them away when confronted with them, speaks volumes about the collective failure of the British establishment. The series steers clear of rumours of Savile’s necrophilia, but even without that, it definitely is a creepy watch. This man/ monster is the very definition of a predator hiding in plain sight.
Available on: Netflix
Kyle Allen (left) and Joey King in The In Between
THE IN BETWEEN
With my penchant for watching heavy (read, horrific) stuff, every once in a while, I gravitate towards a romantic comedy. Though I am not big on the Young Adult genre, The In Between caught my attention. I am a firm believer in the afterlife and the fact that this was a love story that touched upon life, death and the in-between made me hit the play button.
The In Between isn’t quite the straightforward rom com. For starters, it plays out over two timelines and tells the story of Tessa (Joey King) and Skylar (Kyle Allen) who, after a meet-cute at a movie theatre, embark on a summer romance. They meet with an accident in which he dies and she lives, and before long, Tessa is certain that Skylar is trying to communicate with her from the afterlife.
The In Between, based on Marc Klein’s YA read of the same name, starts off with promise, with both Joey King and Kyle Allen being very easy on the eye. Their aborted love story and Tessa’s attempts to cope with grief, loss and separation will even leave you slightly teary eyed, but the film soon turns into a wreck that’s messier than the car accident that overturns the lives of its young protagonists.
Granted that a premise like this calls for a suspension of disbelief, but that is built so unsteadily in this film that whatever happens comes off as boring at best and laughable at worst. Which is a pity because The In Between had the potential to be an engaging, emotional film, but what we get at the end of a tiresome 116 minutes is one of those things that qualify as watch it, shut it, forget it, never return to it.
Available on: Netflix