This year we’re getting not one, but three Charles Manson movies. There’s of course Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, that bizarre Hilary Duff Sharon Tate movie opening next month, and then one that sounds like a dream we once had: a Mary Harron movie about the Manson girls.
The cultural fascination around the cult leader has often focused on the mysterious intrigue of Manson himself, or on the gory details of the infamous 1969 murders. But what about the women at the center of Manson’s cult? Charlie Says, directed by Harron from a script by her American Psycho co-writer Guinevere Turner, is all about the three young women involved in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Initially sentenced to death, the three were eventually committed to life in prison when the California death penalty was overturned.
The first trailer for Charlie Says finds Leslie Van Houten (Game of Thrones’ Hannah Murray), Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendón) and Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon) all behind bars. Through a series of conversations with Merritt Wever’s Karlene Faith—a real-life a criminology professor who went on to write a book about Van Houten, which the film is partially based on—the women reflect on their crimes. And then there’s Manson, played by Matt Smith in what could be excellent or terrible casting. Based on the trailer, it’s hard to say which. The brief moments we do see of his cult leader are relatively muted for such a role. Then again, if Manson proved to be the least interesting element in a film made by women all about the experiences of the women he recruited and brainwashed, that’s hardly a bad thing.
After spending the past several years directing for TV, this also marks an exciting return to the big screen for Harron. We can only hope it proves to be worth the wait. Charlie Says, which also stars Suki Waterhouse and Chase Crawford, hits theaters on May 10.
38 Comments
Holy shit, that is Matt Smith! Well…this could be wacky! Or droll. He has range.
From the trailer he seems surprisingly good in the role. Apart from the fact that he bears absolutely no physical resemblance to Manson…
Casting Charles Manson is like hiring Batman for the chin, all you need is long hair and beard for authenticity.
Well Hannah Murray, who I love, is a terrible choice physically for Leslie Van Houten, as is Marianne Rendon for Susan Atkins. Sosie Bacon, though, is a decent choice for Krenwinkle.This is the real Atkins on the left, Krenwinkle in the middle and Van Houten on the right.
“Apart from the fact that he bears absolutely no physical resemblance to Manson…”
So hair, beard, style of dress…those are all psychological resemblances?
typo, last sentence: Carla, not Cara
god…anyone but merritt wever. i cannot stand her (or more specifically i cannot stand her characters which makes me not like her)
so if i join a cult and kill someone maybe i’m the victim? nice to know.
Nobody said that, dumbass. Surely there’s another website where you can go just to get mad in the comments.
lol, yeah, i’m super mad and you’re definitely super smart for reading my comment that way. way to go, genius.
also, just for the sake of clarity here, around 1:50 in the trailer someone says, “maybe these women are victims too…” so yeah, somebody did say that. 😉
Totally, you can be a victim of one thing and guilty of another thing. What a crazy world we live in!
i think this is a pleasant way of denying these women agency.
Have you ever considered shutting the fuck up?
lol
“i think”
No you clearly don’t, but you should.
that’s one of the most pathetic attempts at an insult i’ve ever seen.
ok
I think you’re pulling words out of your ass.
Ahhh, that’s cute, you don’t know how to use a dictionary. 😀
Sorry, left my Assholes on the Internet to English dictionary at home today.
That’s not a very impressive cover for having the vocabulary of a third grader.
it is a complex situation
they were not so innocent when they met him, according to charlie
tex especially. and atkins was a full-tilt psycho before she ever met charlie
Starring Matt Smith as a Geico Caveman
Matt Smith? Isn’t he, like, 3 feet taller than the extremely short real-life Manson?
Let’s not stereotype Hobbits as criminals, just because two of the most famous ones are Manson and Bilbo Baggins.
If Tom Cruise can play Jack Reacher (6’4″ , 230lbs) then a tall man can play Charlie Manson.
Never trust a hippy.
Never go with a hippy to a second location.
Or follow them to a second location.
Tarantino’s film will almost certainly eclipse this upon release, but there’s potential for this to be more probative than the navalgazing and flippancy I fear Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will probably be…
I find the idea of Matt Smith as Manson utterly baffling. Maybe I’ll change my mind when I see more than a few out of context seconds of his performance but it just doesn’t work for me
Hannah Murray is a phenomenal actress, will go and see this just for her!
Charlie says“I’ve come to hate the piggiesAnd all the helter skelter in this world”
This strikes me as far more interesting than the Tarantino thing. But does it blow anyone else’s mind to think that Guinevere Turner wrote Bloodrayne?
Gilly?!?!?. . . . Sorry.
Charlie was 5 foot 1 and half
Matt is 5 foot 9
They DID follow a hippie to a second location, which we all know you should never do. I’m not as clever as many commenters on here, but it needed to be said.