Charlie Says makes a strong case for an even grayer area: That perhaps these women can be victims and guilty of horrific, unpardonable crimes. It's an unsettling thought. But at least, unlike the exaltation of Ted Bundy's abundant charm, it's a new one.

| Oct 23, 2019

Harron's film is at its most thoughtful, and its most useful, in moments where it presents itself as an exploration of young women in thrall to a charismatic, deeply egotistical leader who thrives on their willing submission.

| Jul 17, 2019

If nothing else, Charlie Says puts Van Houten in the center of her own story. Look at her game, girl.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 11, 2019

While well-intentioned and thoughtful, "Charlie Says" is too ambivalent and too safe to deliver much in the way of original insight.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 11, 2019

A fascinating and feminist exploration of Manson's first victims: the girls themselves.

| May 10, 2019

You want to see how a person could surrender herself - her self - to something so diabolical, which demands a higher level of insanity than the filmmakers can muster.

| May 10, 2019

There's just not enough to Charlie Says, an ambitious, but uneven drama about the oft-sensationalized 'Manson Girls.'

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 10, 2019

Suffering through what Charlie says again, without purpose, is unfair punishment, if you ask me.

| Original Score: 1/4 | May 10, 2019

Charlie Says is a difficult movie that strips away the Hollywood veneer to a well-worn true crime story.

| May 10, 2019

The movie's depiction of these lost flower children, and what rendered them susceptible to Manson's brainwashing, is frustratingly shapeless and shallow.

| May 9, 2019

In her powerful and deeply affecting "Charlie Says," Mary Harron revisits the Manson cult in a dramatization largely told from the perspective of his female followers.

| May 9, 2019

Harron does a good job of conveying both the late-'60s period and the surreal surroundings of the Spahn Ranch where Manson and his followers made their home.

| Original Score: B- | May 8, 2019

Despite taking a different angle to the much-discussed crimes, Charlie Says still feels shallow in its approach.

| Original Score: C- | May 8, 2019

The film appears to be striving for humanistic understanding, but the end result is far too jumbled to have the proper impact.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 8, 2019

The Manson scenes, which take up roughly half of the running time, do not or cannot suggest to us why these young women fell under Manson's power.

| May 7, 2019

Harron chooses not to focus on the victims who were killed, but how their savage murders impacted the women who committed them.

| May 2, 2019

What makes Charlie Says so original is its perspective and its willingness to depict the banality and absurdity of life with Manson rather than simply to portray him as the quintessence of evil.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2018

So ambivalent as to be frustratingly gun-shy about truly asserting a point of view, or adding anything meaningful to the already thriving cottage industry of Manson-adjacent storytelling.

| Sep 4, 2018

It has none of the brilliance and insight of Emma Cline's 2016 novel The Girls, on roughly the same subject.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 4, 2018

Charlie Says is absorbing if only intermittently effective, but it has the distinction of bringing a female gaze to arguably the most notorious crime spree in American history.

| Sep 4, 2018