The Thing About Pam

I am uneasy with the idea of turning the story of a serial killer into a comedy - especially since these crimes are recent enough to still be very painful to the survivors. But if we judged Hollywood according to the standards of good taste, we'd all be watching nothing but Leave It to Beaver reruns.

The pacing is good, the script is well written, I like the narration (something I usually dislike), and Renee Zellweger is quite convincing as the "psycho next door." So despite the fact that I agree with the reviewers who say this is in poor taste and it's all about turning a tragedy into a comedy. I am going to continue watching...

... because the bottom line is this is an entertaining show.

By now anyone who doesn't know who Pam Hupp is should do a quick search. This limited six-episode series is not intended to surprise you, we pretty well know the sequence of events. It is intended to entertain. With heavy makeup and prosthetics Renee Zellweger is unrecognizable until she speaks. She plays Pam with a lot of dark humor, I'd suppose the character is exaggerated. But the way she does it totally entertaining.

This week I finished the series and my overall take is the old saying "Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction."

Good series. The actors are all in fine form.

I've been reading about the actual case, and this movie isn't overexaggerating a thing. The authorities really were that arrogant, Pam really is that psychotic, and the people around her were really that manipulated.

Watching shows like this taught me more about the human psyche than any college psychology course. Another crazy movie was " The Good Father: The Martin MacNeill Story."

Zellweger is excellent in this playing the Machiavellian Pam up against weak-minded, incompetent, small-town law enforcement. This whole works extraordinarily well despite my prejudice against narrated stories and 'true story' drama. Judy Greer performs admirably as the closed-minded prosecutor, and effectively colludes with the police, the judge and Pam in framing the innocent husband.

I listened to the podcast, so I did know the background on this case. The case is very interesting, so I was intrigued.

It seems like intentionally they don't want you to really like any of the characters.

Personally, I do love when a show is narrated, but it feels almost silly the way that this was done.

If I were a family member or friend of Betsy Faria and watched how this show was framed, I would be upset. Somehow, they managed to take a heartbreaking case and turn it almost 'silly'.

I say check out the show, but keep in mind that this was a woman (Betsy) whose story deserves to be told.