Beware of counter transference - it can warp your judgment

Rating: 10/10 (10 October 2005)

In this movie a writer is assigned to cover a story of an entire family brutally slaughtered by two men; the two men are apprehended, incarcerated, tried, convicted and sentenced to death. The two men committed a crime that was as senseless as it was heinous. These men deserve no special consideration or attention whatsoever, except as it relates to the horrible crime they committed. Yet the writer befriends one of the murderers - in fact the one who actually did the killing - and now has to deal with the fact that he now has an intimate relationship with a cunning and deceitful mass murderer, who is so nasty that his own sister wants nothing to do with him. The writer knows that yet he can't help himself. No matter how much he tries, he can't stop thinking about this murderer. Well, what does that say about the writer? The movie shows how the writer, who is urbane, mild-mannered, well-liked, and respected, recognizes the unacceptability of transforming this work assignment into something personal, but he simply can't help it, and now he is stuck with having to deal with the consequences for the rest of his life. For by writing an entire book about these two no-account murderers, is the writer in a way really writing about himself? Is the writer in a way condoning, glamorizing or at least excusing, what these two men did? Indeed, the writer even goes so far as to obtain legal counsel for these dangerous characters. This movie shows what happens when a professional person who is expected to maintain professional objectivity loses that objectivity and becomes enmeshed in the subject matter that he is examining. Once the boundary that separates the job from the personal is crossed, the consequences can be emotionally devastating, which is what happens to the writer as the writer, who was a successful and gifted author, never writes another book and drinks for the rest of his life.