Oscar-Winning Writing Based on a Lie to their Audience

Rating: 3/10 (8 June 2009)

The premise of this screenplay begins with a lie to the audience; at the beginning of the film, a somber title comes on saying that "due to respect for the survivors, names have been changed in this film". This implies that the events of the film are true, and that the writers are showing respect.
Neither of these two things are true. The Cohen Brothers, after winning the Oscar for Best Writers (not before), eventually came out and admitted the story was entirely fictional. So much praise had been heaped on them, that no-one seemed to care at that point.
It would be great of newspapers worked the same way. Bush would never have been criticized when no WMD's were found.
Why does this matter, and who cares at this point?
When I first saw this movie, I was disturbed by the way the kidnap victim, the mother, was portrayed: as comic relief. Her running from her kidnappers was comical, the way she was shown running around in the snow with a bag over her head was comical, and even her death (her skewed legs upside down) was shown as comical.
The son, however, who was terrified for his mother, was not shown comically. So here we have a screenplay where the writers showed a terrified victim as comedy, and the son's terror for his mother dismissed. If this screenplay had been based on true events, to say this was disrespectful both to the mother and the son is an understatement. Imagine being the son who survived your mother's kidnapping and murder, and seeing her portrayed in this way.
But that's OK, because we find out later the whole thing was fictional. Except for the fact that I wasn't the only one upset by the way the victims were presented; other people, in particular victims rights groups, were too. Then we find out that we had been jerked around, that it was all a fiction.
Does that make it any more acceptable? Imagine your favorite movie that moved you because it was based on true events; then you find out years later it was all done so you would buy a ticket, and you had been deceived. This is what the Cohen Brothers did to their audience.
Good writers? Sure. Ethical people? You decide.
But respectful of their audience and to murdered people?
Apparently, not very.