June 30, 2008

Maybe The Fictional Version Of Crazy Love Will Have A Likeable Character

Variety reports that the filmmakers behind Crazy Love, last year's documentary about Burt Pugach and Linda Riss, who got married after Burt spent many years in prison for hiring thugs to (successfully) mutilate and blind Linda by throwing lye in her face, are making a fictional version of the movie for HBO Films:

The characters that drew me to this story in the first place become magnificent roles for actors," Klores said. "These characters are very complex, and not merely ill. Even Burt is not pure evil, though his act was way beyond repulsive.

At first this news seems odd, since the main selling point of documentaries based on amazing true stories is their amazing trueness, but Crazy Love, while well-made, couldn't really succeed because every single person involved or interviewed for it except Jimmy Breslin was sort of just awful.

And not in a way where there was a gray area to be explored, which is where a fictional account could work. Everyone on The Sopranos would have been awful without great writing. Crazy Love is absolutely worth watching out of historical interest, but be prepared to get depressed if you're expecting the "love" in the title not to be ironic. Documentary trailer: