Jeunesse volée: la secte du Sarah Lawrence College

As Episode 1 of "Stolen Youth" (2023 release; 3 episodes ranging from 64 min to 75 min each) opens, it is "Freshman Year 2009" at Sarah Lawrence College. MGMT's "Time to Pretend" is blasting away, and we are introduced to a group of then18 yo kids, who are now in their early 30s. They bond, and by their sophomore, they move in together in an off-campus house. Things couldn't be better. Then out of the blue, Tania's dad, Larry Ray, recently released from jail, also moves in, "temporarily"... At this point we are 10 minutes into the opening episode.

Couple of comments: this mini-series is the latest from award-winning director Zach Heinzerling ("Cutie and the Boxer", "McCartney 3,2.1"). Here he looks back at the bizarre events that unfolded in the early 2010s in New York involving a group of college kids being manipulated by a narcissistic guy, I mean, you can't make this stuff up! It is at the same time fascinating and nauseating. It's like watching a train wreck happening before you very own eyes. In addition to the many audio and video archive materials, we also hear from many of the people directly involved, looking back at this more than a decade later, some seemingly still shellshocked as they recount these events and how they ended up getting stuck in a cult, because that is what it was. Psychological manipulation in its most extreme form is what happened here. You probably are thinking that this could never happen to you, and that is exactly what this group of kids is now warning you about: if it could happen to them, it can happen to anyone. Please note that this mini-series is NOT titled "Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence". It is simply titled "Stolen Youth", per the mini-series film credits.

"Stolen Youth" premiered on Hulu in late February. I binged the 3 episodes in a single setting, and found this a lot more compelling that I had expected. If you are in the mood for a true crime documentary mini-series that reminds us what a cult is like, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

I had heard about this story when it occurred at the time, and watched the 3 episode documentary because it was reviewed so positively by most critics. It did remind me a little bit of the NXIVM cult, as someone else mentioned in another review. I guess some people think that what Larry Ray did to these people wouldn't be possible, but sadly, there are many people out there looking for answers who are not very strong-minded, and want others to do all their thinking for them. As you can see in the documentary, not all the Sarah Lawrence friends fell under Larry Ray's evil spell. Sadly, some did. The manipulation and the implanting of false memories was stunning. Watching and listening to Larry Ray was like watching and listening to Pure Evil. One of the good/bad things about society today compared to 40 years ago is that people can easily videotape and audiotape themselves (and seem to enjoy doing that, by the way). Sadly, I'm sure things like this happened 40 years ago, but there is little, if any documentation of what happened. Now, we get to see a lot of it.

This is a slow documentary. To really see the day-to-day progression from happy college kids to completely brainwashed and mentally broken adults, it has to be told slowly. If you just hear the events listed out you don't get the true picture/feeling of the story.

This is about a man that 1,000% abused these kids and 1,000% had them believing he was the best person in the world and the only one that cared about him. The best part of this documentary is the actual footage. It's mind blowing to see exactly how this man manipulated and molded them into his slaves without them realizing he was doing it. It would be hard to believe all the things he was capable of if someone told you. It is STILL hard to believe while you're literally watching him do it.

The best thing the man ever did was record everything. His recordings are like watching unethical and inhumane psychology experiments, and it's disgusting.

You can't have a low enough score for the subject matter. It's just vile. However, the documentary covered it extremely well. 10/10.

This is one documentary that I feel like could have been a lot longer. That's my only complaint - I feel like I have so many unanswered questions. There's a lot more that I'd like to know such as more about Larry's life pre all this, and more about the aftermath.

This whole story is wild. I knew nothing about it before hand and didn't really read into it so I didn't know what to expect. But this man is delusional and a horrible narcissist. These poor kids!

Super interesting documentary that made me feel angry, sad, shocked, disgusted and frustrated. The last episode had me in tears.

I read that there's a book one of the guys wrote so I'm going to buy it and read it.

Those reviewing this documentary because they don't like the story are idiots. It's a TRUE STORY!! They didn't make it up. It has shocking audio and video of a lot of the very disturbing parts of the story. It is a cult. They cut off family, gave all there money to him, commited crimes for him and treated him like a God. Using sleep deprivation and withholding food to assert control. They are all main parts of cults like Scientology, people's temple and the recent nixium cult.

The harsh criticism that they could just leave is easy to say when you're not in that situation. No one joins a cult on purpose. That's the point of it. The human condition of conditioning is fascinating, complex and mysterious. Decades of examples all over the world. Why does it happen so often. This documentary really goes into great depth to show the before, during and after the mind control they endured. It's frightening and disturbing. But also an utter compelling story.