Leaving Neverland

HBO | Release Date: March 3, 2019

3.2	USER SCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 65 Ratings

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User Reviews

User score By date Most helpful

marioinspaceOct 14, 2020

This is a fascinating documentary which explores child grooming and abuse, and how they can happen without anyone intervening.

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

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EliinaDec 6, 2019

Powerful documentary, from the perspectives of two brave men and their families.

3 of 15 users found this helpful312

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EROCKQMar 3, 2020

I am disturbed that the user score is so low. It is clear that MJ was a pedo. His songs even hint at it.

2 of 12 users found this helpful210

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ajzeg01Sep 21, 2019

This is a very well-made documentary about a very heavy and disturbing subject. It is about how Michael Jackson allegedly groomed and molested young boys. It is really well put together with tons of archival photos and footage. Anyone whoThis is a very well-made documentary about a very heavy and disturbing subject. It is about how Michael Jackson allegedly groomed and molested young boys. It is really well put together with tons of archival photos and footage. Anyone who asks where the evidence is should actually watch the documentary. There is tons of evidence. The interviews were all framed in an intimate and interesting way and it shows a perspective that we haven’t really seen before when it comes to Jackson, the perspective of the victims. Even if you think he is innocent, this is a must-watch for anyone who wants to have meaningful conversations about the film itself and child abuse in general, which is what the movie is about at its core. If you want to watch it, it is on HBO. Just make sure to put an afternoon aside if you’re going to watch it. It is 4 hours long. 5 hours long with the talkback and panel discussion with Oprah. It’s a hard watch with a lot of graphic details, but an important one.… Expand

2 of 12 users found this helpful210

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Bertaut1Oct 27, 2019

A difficult-to-watch examination of grooming and the psychological scars of abuse

Leaving Neverland is not about Michael Jackson, Wade Robson, or James Safechuck. It's about how paedophiles groom not just their victims, but their victims'A difficult-to-watch examination of grooming and the psychological scars of abuse

Leaving Neverland is not about Michael Jackson, Wade Robson, or James Safechuck. It's about how paedophiles groom not just their victims, but their victims' families. It's about the relationship that victims can form with their abusers. It's about the reasons that can conspire to prevent victims from coming forward. It's about how the effects of childhood sexual abuse linger into adulthood. Undoubtedly, it's unbalanced in favour of the accusers, with director Dan Reed omitting anything on their ongoing lawsuits against the Jackson estate. Irrespective of this, however, it's a hugely important document on grooming and the psychological effects of abuse.

The film tells the similar but separate stories of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, each of whom met Jackson in 1987, when Wade was five and James was ten, and both of whom claim Jackson abused them for much of the following decade. Despite the 240-minute runtime, the only interviewees are Wade, his mother Joy, sister Chantal, brother Shane, grandmother Lorraine Jean Cullen, and wife Amanda, and James, mother Stephanie, and wife Laura.

Aesthetically, the film is as plain as possible. Whereas Wade and James's accounts are graphic, they're never sensationalised, with Reed allowing their words to speak for themselves – there's no cutaways to experts telling us what to think, no montages to suture us into the timeframe. Indeed, at times, Reed waits patiently as an interviewee formulates their thoughts – a kind of "dead air" that one doesn't find in most documentaries.

This tendency to leave the stories unadorned ties into the small pool of interviewees – this is Wade and James's story, and anyone which can't speak to that specific rubric isn't featured. For example, there's no attempt to portray Jackson as less culpable because he didn't have a childhood. In fact, it makes no attempt to portray him at all. Again, this is Wade and James's story only.

Within that, it's as much about the complex relationships that victims can develop with their abusers as it is with the abuse itself. This speaks to why both Wade and James lied for so long (each man defended Jackson when he was accused of molestation in 1993, and Wade again defended him against similar accusations in 2005) – they weren't just lying to other people, they were lying to themselves. And ultimately, the film suggests that rather than being indicative of fabrication, such falsehoods are an understandable reaction to sustained abuse.

A major theme is the manipulative nature inherent to grooming. As much as it is about the manipulation of the boys, so too is it about the non-sexual manipulation of the families - Joy and Stephanie were both talked into granting permission for a man they didn't really know to take their child into his bed, and the two are working today as much to forgive themselves as they are to atone to their children.

Of course, there are problems. The imbalance for example. I understand why Reed confined his interviews to just Wade, James, and their families, but by doing so, he has opened himself and the film up to a not illegitimate form of attack. And because this makes the film easier to critique, it makes it easier to dismiss, and thus easier to ignore, which is pretty much the opposite of what you want to happen as a documentarian.

Another problem is that it doesn't need to be four-hours long. There are several lengthy narrative digressions that, although they help to flesh out the home lives of Wade and James, do very little to inform the allegations against Jackson. Reed also tends to overuse drone shots of LA, which act like paragraph breaks. It's an interesting idea, but there are far too many, becoming repetitive and, eventually, irritating. And then, of course, there are the omissions, which have proven to be a red flag to a bull for Jackson fans. For example, that Wade is suing the Jackson estate is mentioned once, very briefly, and never alluded to again. That James is also suing the estate is never mentioned.

In the end, the lack of balance is a significant problem, but not to the extent that it undermines the way Reed presents the accusations, the way he teases out the process of grooming, the way he unflinchingly presents the abuse itself, the way he comes to focus on the years after the abuse ended – the film's cumulative effect is startlingly raw and generally persuasive. It looks at the process by which Jackson manoeuvred himself into a position to abuse the boys as much as at the abuse itself and at the psychological effects of telling the lie for so long as much as at the lie itself. In this sense, this is a hugely valuable document, not necessarily in terms of the specifics of Wade and James's stories, but in relation to the broader issues of child sexual abuse, and the misconceptions that permeate the zeitgeist.… Expand

2 of 13 users found this helpful211

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