Ghislaine Maxwell: Asquerosamente rica

6.7 stars.

I don't rate documentaries above a 7 usually, because the overall experience must be taken into account with all my ratings. A documentary is very informative, but it's not something I will watch more than once, at least not 99% of them. There are very few I'd re-watch. Anyways, enough of that. The point is any great documentary will only provide a limited amount of entertainment for me, and even with all the great information, I must still be entertained. I watch TV for that reason primarily. And so, is this a good documentary compared to most? I suppose it would be if it was something fresh, but we already knew all this stuff, it was just a matter of time. And so this documentary is average at best, but not too bad.

Ghislaine was probably the real monster behind it all. She coordinated all of this for him, sure he was a very bad man, but he was not necessarily the mastermind. Or, maybe he was the mastermind, but she was the person who made his wishes come to fruition. He needed a charming woman to put his ideas into motion.

We can see from a very young age that she was this sort of an organizer. Her friends talk about her being so charismatic and the life of the party and she knew how to throw parties and get people together for a purpose. When she had an agenda, she knew how to make it happen and how to put things together and she did it for Jeff, because she wanted his approval maybe, but that's no excuse.

There are literal records of people who visited Epstein's island. Until they are made public and every single name mentioned in them investigated rigorously, this will be one of the most blatant misuses of power that the general public has been made aware of, and then ignored.

Make no mistake. This entire saga is no more an indictment of the people responsible than of the people who take it with a proverbial grain of salt.

We know these crimes persist. There are more billionaires with islands and resorts and ranches and they will not persist with their monstrous crimes.

This isn't a success. This is a sad proclamation that we can do nothing to affect change to how the rich and powerful choose to live.

Genuinely liked the amount of interviews & information provided. All very curated however, and while I can't fault what limitations the show-runners had to deal with to get so many interviews with "family & friends" of ghislane, this film stinks of propaganda.

At the end of the day Ghislane was thrown under the bus, more or less, to quash public curiousity & outrage. Same deal in this film as far as I can tell, except they add some sympathetic story threads for her.

Watching this film will not change anyone's mind who believes that Epstein was killed to send a message to others. The only story anyone gets to hear is that he was the devil, and NOTHING else happened.

Interviews with ALL these "ex" friends of Ghislaine coming out now? Hmmm, where were they when all this stuff was going down? Now all of a sudden every ex friend of hers wants to tell their story. Pretty sure these people were either involved or knew what was going on! SO many "ex" friends talking out NOW 🙄. Give me a break, they knew and are just as disgusting as her. They even say they saw "signs" but did nothing. Seriously?! These are people that knew her VERY well and they're just now coming out saying stuff? They knew the whole time and were probably a part of the whole thing. They're just "finally" speaking out now to make themselves seem innocent.

I'm not saying she didn't do the things she's accused (and was ultimately found guilty) of doing, but these testimonials from prior associates and "survivors" don't really tell that story.

They selectively tell the story of a person who, like frankly a lot of people in the 90s/80s/70s, was riding the 'Super Freak' train.

There's the adult store clerk "survivor" who Maxwell hit on/pursued/made uncomfortable with salacious advances; the adult massage therapist who, because she was abused as a child, found herself unable to say 'no' to Maxwell's sexual advances; a group of adults to whom Maxwell proposed a party game where blindfolded male guests were to fondle the breasts of female guests.

Discomfiting, inappropriate, kinky, yes ... but criminal?

Again. Not saying she didn't do those other things. After all, she was found guilty in 2021 of child sex trafficking.

I just found this documentary to be pretty thin.

I quit watching after the photographer's testimonial. He tells the story of a photo shoot Maxwell arranged to promote her ocean conservancy efforts. The shoot takes place on the beach and Maxwell shows up wearing her 'save-the-ocean' tee shirt and ... gasp ... stiletto heels!

The photographer bows his head pensively and sighs.

'If only he'd recognized the signs,' his sad, faraway gaze seems to say.