Ghislaine Maxwell: Pouvoir, argent et perversion

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.

I struggle with parts of this case. I do not struggle with anything that has to do with 14 yo girls. However I do struggle with aspiring models, actresses & massage therapists acting completely shocked at being propositioned for sexual favors in return for money. The Jeffrey Epstein version interviews Annie Farmer's sister who was/is an artist & was receiving gifts, being put up in mansions to nothing but her art, etc & then at a certain point was propositioned for sex...ran in to a room and barricaded her self & left...but then allowed her younger sister to go there & surprise surprise the same thing happened

I guess my heart is black because it seems like anyone with half a brian & a bit of savvy would not accept any of these "gifts" w/o assuming there would eventually be a quid pro quo & at some point the giftee would want something in return.

Of course I'm only speaking of the women that are of age(which varies drastically from state to state & country to country. In fact 16 is the age of consent in most states in the USA). Maybe my ego is low? But did these women think that they were so amazing that people were just going to sponsor their careers, academic goals at the tune of thousands of dollars because they were so smart and interesting? The world is FULL of people doing very demeaning things for far less money.

These docs also put their finger in the scale by showing old photos of these women either years prior to the incident, or when they have no makeup on & look their absolute youngest.

I also would not be surprised if the reason we don't hear about all of the other "friends" of JE/GM is because there are secret settlement negotiations going on with them to keep their names out of the media.

Toward the end of the "Documentary" I found it very rich for an Attorney w/Jeffrey Boice's history to say something to the effect of "...these people need to be heard, powerful people can't...blah blah..."...Boice was one of the attorneys that AMBUSHED Tyler Shultz(the main whistleblower of the Theranos case)at his grandfather George Shultz's home in an attempt to force him to recant & sign NDA documents. An event that basically wrecked Tyler's relationship with his grandfather.

I realize attorneys are going to do attorney things & are essential(esp being questioned by police in ANY facet. ALWAYS say you want an attorney present...no matter what). But it's a little cringe when Attorney's that mostly have represented the uber wealthy bang the table for the little guy

Anyway in the zeitgeist of our times, there is no way a documentary delving in to this case &/or subject matter can even dip its toes in the balanced waters. The closest they came here was reading some of the cross examination & immediately calling it "rough" or "harsh" when I'm sure everyone of those attorneys would have taken the exact same plays from that playbook had they been retained by the other side.

I liked the small bit that talked about Ghislane's background. Being an American I wasn't as familiar with her as I'm sure people from the UK are. But nothing else was really illuminating if you've even just barely been following the heels of coverage this case has gotten(seems like the media almost trying to make up for dropping the ball on the original JE conviction?)

All that said I give this a 2/5...on par with one of the better episodes of the crappy, paint-by-numbers American true crime shows like "Dateline" & "48hrs"

This was a film about the young girls Maxwell delivered to Epstein. But there was more going on.

There was an island, there were powerful people flying to the island. Girls were groomed and provided for these powerful and wealthy people.

It left out the other powerful people affected - with the exception of a prince Andrew.

The documentary focused on Ghislaine, going from past to present. It discussed her family life, her father who died (fell of yacht) and how after his death, huge discrepancies in his companies' finances were revealed, including his fraudulent misappropriation of the Mirror Group pension fund.

More could have been done to honestly explore her interesting childhood, her upbringing (father Jewish, mother protestant), career with her father, what she was like growing up etc.

It was shallow and focused somewhat on her life of glamour without delving into the details of her repulsive psyche. It offered no insight or truth.

Interviews with ALL these "ex" friends of Ghislaine coming out now? Hmmm, where were they when all this stuff was going down? Now all of a sudden every ex friend of hers wants to tell their story. Pretty sure these people were either involved or knew what was going on! SO many "ex" friends talking out NOW 🙄. Give me a break, they knew and are just as disgusting as her. They even say they saw "signs" but did nothing. Seriously?! These are people that knew her VERY well and they're just now coming out saying stuff? They knew the whole time and were probably a part of the whole thing. They're just "finally" speaking out now to make themselves seem innocent.

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.