Review: ‘Tabloid’

After taking on weighty subjects in his last two documentaries, you can understand what drew filmmaker Errol Morris to the story of Joyce McKinney. A former Miss Wyoming, McKinney thought she had found her soul mate in Kirk Anderson, a Mormon missionary. But instead of romantic bliss, she ended up becoming a notorious tabloid figure when she chased him to England, convinced he'd been kidnapped by his fellow Mormons. Morris, who had recently made movies about Robert McNamara (the Oscar-winning "The Fog of War") and Abu Ghraib ("Standard Operating Procedure"), no doubt saw McKinney's pulpy, bizarre tale as a welcome change of pace, as well as a return to his earlier career in which he documented the strange behavior of seemingly ordinary folks in movies like "Gates of Heaven" and "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control." In comparison to his seemingly more meaningful recent films, some may find "Tabloid" shallow and glib. I think it's one of his most purely entertaining -- and smarter than it appears on its surface.

Using his usual technique of letting his subjects speak for themselves, "Tabloid" presents McKinney's story from McKinney herself. Now in her 60s, McKinney speaks directly to the camera, giving us a look into her early life and detailing how she and Anderson fell in love in the mid-1970s. (Anderson refused to participate in the film, so you'll just have to take her word for it.) But after getting engaged, Anderson disappeared. McKinney discovered he was in the U.K. for missionary work, and so she and a few associates went after him so that she could bring him back.

The story gets weirder from there, and much of the enjoyment of "Tabloid" is how the twists and turns play out. Morris has made a habit out of offering his audience potentially unreliable narrators, but with McKinney what's fascinating is that although she seems more than a little daffy, she isn't the only colorful or suspicious character who sits down in front of the filmmaker's camera to offer perspective on the events. Not since "The Thin Blue Line," a much more serious documentary about the false imprisonment of Randall Dale Adams, has Morris crafted such a splendid mystery-thriller in which he lays out the story with care and a taste for building suspense.

There's an argument to be made that Morris laughs a little too hard at his own joke in 'Tabloid." McKinney's public foibles are meant to be mocked as a precursor to our modern-day obsession with scandals. But there's simply no denying the juiciness of what Morris uncovers in his film. A more restrained approach might have helped amplify the shock of his movie's odd story, but "Tabloid" works so well because it's not just an indictment of a loon but, also, a whole media industry that benefits off the real-life misery of such people -- not to mention a culture that simply cannot get enough of that misery. In that regard, the film's lack of subtlety is less problematic: Morris seems to be beating the tabloids at their own game, crafting a smarter, more measured portrait about a self-deluded soul than they could, all the while making it just as breezy and addictive.

Still, there will no doubt be audience members who simply enjoy pointing and laughing at McKinney, and Morris doesn't entirely deny that such a reaction is part of his objective. (In his "Director's Statement" in the press notes, he says, "'Tabloid' is a return to my favorite genre -- sick, sad and funny.") He's a bit too smug about McKinney, and it comes through in his film. But I can't deny that I found it totally engrossing nonetheless. In the end, I almost wonder if I had more sympathy for McKinney than her interviewer did. But although some of us like to bemoan the vulgar trashiness of reality television, its appeal is obvious: We're all hooked on watching other people's lives, especially when they're going down the toilet. It's why we stop and gawk at car accidents. It's why we get wrapped up in celebrity trials. Some of that scorn you want to send McKinney's way may be better directed back at yourself for finding it all so engrossing in the first place.

Grade: A-