There is one episode in Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story which stands out from the rest. It only lasts 36 minutes but it is one of the most gripping 36 minutes of TV you will have ever seen.
From the first episode you might be forgiven for thinking that this is just another exploitative Netflix serial killer series. It tells the true story of how, in 1989, two young brothers violently murdered their abusive parents in their Beverley Hills mansion, and recounts the events leading up to and following the slaughter. However by Episode 5 you know that it’s not that simple.
Directed by Michael Uppendahl, Episode 5, The Hurt Man, is the record of a prison interview between Erik (the firmly photogenic Cooper Koch) and his tireless defence lawyer Leslie Abramson (the permanently waved Ari Graynor)
While not totally original, in that it borrows from a prison scene in Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008) where IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) is visited by a priest (Liam Cunningham), the differences between the segments are significant.
In Hunger, the 24 minute scene plays out in a fixed wide shot, with the actors sitting opposite each other at a table symmetrically positioned in the frame. The room is dark and their profiles are seen in silhouette. The scene concludes by switching to a close up of Bobby. Up until this point, about 17 minutes in, we have not seen the actors faces or expressions. Everything has been conveyed vocally. There has been a balance of views, and opinions from each side of the table have been expressed equally. Only in close up do we see and hear Bobby’s justification for his actions, with which the priest is unable to argue.
Compare this with The Hurt Man.
The episode begins as a wide shot where Erik is sitting facing the camera, to our right behind a table, in a dimly lit interview room. The frame is not obviously composed and this could be a recording from a CCTV camera. Leslie enters talking, and sits down opposite him, but slightly to our left. From now on we only see Leslie from behind. This allows us to focus on Erik’s face which we will be aware of for the next 35 minutes. The camera will slowly zoom in imperceptibly and end in a tight close up while we become emotionally immersed in Erik’s harrowing story.
Each episode of this series is told from the viewpoint of a single person. Their opinions vary greatly. In Episode 5 Murphy and co-creator Ian Brennan allow Erik to tell his side of the story. Although not a transcript of an actual interview, Murphy explains “Everything he does say in there was either based on things that he had said, written, talked about, wrote transcripts, et cetera, so it was very true to his point of view.”
The scene was filmed eight times and the final take is the one which we see.
Leslie begins by lighting a cigarette and making small talk. We can tell that she cares for Erik. She soon asks him to describe the sexual abuse he and his brother experienced at the hands of their father Jose (Javier Bardem). As Erik remembers his childhood trauma in detail, the camera slowly moves towards him capturing his feelings. The dialogue unfolds in a matter of fact manner. Leslie nods regularly, letting Erik talk but teasing more from him with her questions.
Here is what we learn:-
His father’s playful “good sex” of childhood developed into the sadistic “bad sex” of his teenage years. The abuse began at age six and continued up until a month before the murders.
Erik admits to being sexually confused. He had a secret relationship with a boy his own age where the sex was enjoyable, but he does not think of himself as gay.
His mother Kitty (Chloë Sevigny) was complicit in his father’s actions and she did not try to stop the assaults. Worried about AIDS and guessing that Erik was gay and sexually active outside the home, she regularly checked his penis for evidence of STDs
In the casual nature of her discourse with Erik, Leslie reveals a little about her own troubled childhood, and her desire to adopt. She is highly critical of his mother. It is not a big step to assume that Leslie would like to be the mother that Erik never had.
Cooper Koch’s sensitive and moving performance engages us completely. By the end of the interview, with Erik calling himself The Hurt Man and his tear stained face filling the screen, we are left stunned and unsure of what has just happened, because in Erik’s final expression his eyes shift to the right to look at Leslie and there is the hint of a sly smile.
Labels: 2024, Cooper Koch, Monsters, Netflix, review, Robert Malcolm, Ryan Murphy, The Menendez Bros, TV series
