Patty Hearst
(1988)
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One evening in February 1974, Patty Hearst, the daughter of newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst, was kid-napped from her Berkeley apartment and taken to a hideout. There she was gagged, blindfolded and kept in a tiny closet. So began a five-year ordeal for Patty, beginning with her kidnapping and followed by her transformation into a guerrilla for the Symbionese Liberation Army, her capture by the FBI, her trial, her imprisonment and the commutation of her sentence by President Carter. |
The career low of writer/director Paul Schrader. Inspired by Patricia Hearst's autobiographical Every Secret Thing, this was obviously meant to be a bold cinematic experiment to re-create the deprivations and sensations that transformed her from want-for-nothing press heiress into committed terrorist. Yet Schrader's use of darkness, dazzling light and off-screen voices fails to convey the fearful disorientation, and the Symbionese Liberation Army propaganda soon has the attention wandering. Natasha Richardson tries hard in the lead, but matters scarcely improve once she goes on active duty.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Based on fact, though impressionistic in approach, it concerns itself, not always successfully, with questions of identity and personal responsibility.