The Vow

I'm so disturbed how some reviews are absolutely cruel and missing what a review is to provide. This is not a forum to criticize people who had the courage to come forward and own their mistakes. Cults are abundant and they come in many tricky forms. As we look at our society today, especially now, there are too many unhappy and unfulfilled people trying to find purpose. This is a symptom of our diseased culture lauding material gain as success and how social media is chipping away personal dignity via being liked. The Vow reveals anyone can be a victim, regardless of background.

There is a lot of good footage, audio recordings, and interviews that help tell the story. The subject matter is fairly interesting, and I do think it's a story worth telling. The problem is that it's disorganized and could use a heavy edit.

Like so many modern docuseries, this feels stretched. The time jumps are odd, and often the scenes feel random and disjointed. You can watch a scene and be left to wonder, "So when did that happen?" because it will be following some footage from 2005 or a phone call recording from 2010. It still works, sort of, but you know it could be so much better if they dropped the fluff and told the story in a direct way.

Too many episodes... They made 10 "ok" episodes instead of making four really good episodes that had just enough coverage and length.. Instead, it kind of drags on and doesn't really grab me as much due to the repetitiveness of it. It's still pretty good, mainly due to the large collection of recorded calls, but it could have benefited from more brevity.

The story of NXIVM is massive. It's impossible for every notable detail to make the final cut. That said, there are some omissions that seem significant. For example, investigative journalist Frank Parlato, who has written extensively about NXIVM over the years, is mentioned in early episodes and characterized as someone who isn't always viewed as credible. But in the seventh episode, Parlato becomes a supporting figure in the series as he helps actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose daughter India refuses to leave NXIVM, in her attempt to get law enforcement involved in the situation. Given all the evidence Parlato has compiled and his willingness to help, he comes across as semi-heroic, albeit eccentric. A visit to his website, the Frank Report, reveals that it's filled with reporting on NXIVM but also posts written by Roger Stone and at least one defense of QAnon, a juxtaposition that caused so much cognitive dissonance in my brain that it turned into a popping-confetti cannon. While it's understandable that Noujaim and Amer decided that a whole sidebar on Parlato would be too distracting, this still raises the question of what other notable information or nuances may have been sliced out of the series.

Ironically, the recent focus in the news on the cultlike believers in QAnon conspiracy theories makes The Vow an especially relevant watch. While NXIVM coaches often preached the notion that trusting one's intuition can be misleading - "Your intuition was just a feeling, a viscera," Bonnie Piesse says in the second episode - the series is a testimony to how vital it is to check one's gut and apply real, unvarnished critical thinking to events unfolding around us. Any of us can potentially have the wool pulled over our eyes by a dude who calls himself Vanguard, or anonymous online posters, or even a president. It's what we do after we realize our vision has been obscured that truly defines whether we're good or bad, and whether we're safe or still in grave danger.

As Episodes 1 of "The Vow" (2020 release; 9 episodes of about 60 min. each) opens, we get to know Keith Raniere, who talks about "optimizing people's experience and behavior". We go to "2017" as a guy named Mark confesses that"I was afraid to be attacked if I left the organization", and then the shocking headline as we go to "2019" where Keith Raniere is convicted of sex trafficking. We then go back in time as we get to know Sarah, who meets Mark on a cruise and they hit it off, big time. Mark convinces Sarah to take the organization's (called NXIVM) initiation program (called Executive Success Program). Sarah is skeptical at first but soon finds herself fully on board... At this point we are 10 min. into Episode 1.

Couple of comments: I must admit that I had never heard of this organization, and that the dead-giveaway in the opening scenes of Episode 1 that its leader was convicted last year of sex trafficking made me sit up and take notice. Based on Episode 1, which mostly explores the "teachings" of NXIVM, this to me sounds like another cult organization, not unlike, say, the Church of Scientology. People are brainwashed and/or convince themselves into believing things that sound like utter rubbish to me (of course about "bringing out the best in themselves", etc.). No signs whatsoever so far about any darker side of things, although the preview of Episode 2 makes clear it's not going to be long before we get to that. How does an entire cult buy into this? That is the $64,000 question which we will explore in future episodes for sure. This new documentary series is directed by the long-time (husband and wife) documentarian team of Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim ("Control Room", "The Square"), and once again they deliver what looks to be a fascinating view behind the curtains, in this case of a cult-like organization.

"The Vow" premiered this past weekend on HBO and Episode 1 is now available on HBO On Demand and other streaming services. New episodes air Sunday evenings at 10 pm Eastern. Can't wait to catch future episodes. If you have an interest in the inner workings of cult-like organizations, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

*UPDATE 8/31/30* Episode 2 confirms all the good things and, yes, also scary things about Episode 1. We are now really taking a deep dive into the "high control group" (a/k/a the cult) that is NXIVM, as we learn new terms like "emotion stretching exercise". Yea, you can't make this up! Episode 2 is also where we learn what "the vow" (the title of this documentary series) actually refers to/stands for. No worries, I won't spoil. Just watch...

*UPDATE 9/7/20* Episode 3 takes a deep dive into Sarah's trajectory within the NXIVM cult, and how her close relationship with Lauren may impact Sarah's marriage. We are now knee-deep into the cult side of things and things are getting "weirder and weirderer". I can only imagine how the remaining 6 episodes are going to play out. This is now officially must-see TV (for me anyway).

*UPDATE 11/1/20* Just as "The Vow" came to a conclusion in early October, another NXIVM documentary mini-series debuted on STARZ called "Seduced: Into the NXIVM Cult", directed by Emmy-nominated Cecilia Peck. It focuses far more onto the personal experienced on India Oxenberg, who became a slave in the "DOS" system of NXIVM. While some of this is of course covered in "The Vow", "Seduced" goes into far greater details of the human trafficking that went on within NXIVM , and one has to wonder why "The Vow" only covers it vaguely.