Ghislaine Maxwell: soldi, potere e perversione

This felt like a re-hash of another documentary about the same woman that I watched a few months ago, with hardly anything new in terms of scandalous revelations. While I don't doubt that Ghislaine Maxwell deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison, it's difficult to ignore the nagging feeling that she has been hung out to dry as a scapegoat. There are many super-rich individuals who are not being named even if we can guess at the identities of a handful of them.

So I found this latest Filthy Rich 'documentary' a total anti-climax, although in fairness it would be interesting if you haven't seen any previous offerings from other production companies.

And I wonder if I will live long enough to see the as yet unmade Filthy Rich documentary that, for once, really exposes the scandals we haven't been told yet. That would be worth watching.

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.

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.

I suppose for anyone who hasn't been following anything to do with Jeffery Epstein much would find this hot gossip and juicy news. In some areas maybe but all up alot of the documentary besides some small easy to find information on her own case is just rehashing old news. I think its very fair to say you dont really need to watch this to know whats going on which is quite disappointing because there should be so much more to say. The quality of the documentary is good for it does have, it explains things well and still keeps things interesting. I would have rated this higher if it didn't feel like one of those doccos that was just made for the sake of making. From a Journalist prospective I believe more effort could have been involved.

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.