Debuting today on Hulu is the new true-crime drama film “Boston Strangler,” directed by Matt Ruskin and starring Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon. While the true-crime craze has reached its apex, not much attention has been paid to this case from the early 1960s, and the film is fascinating not for its lurid details but for its focus on two female journalists, Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole (played by Knightley and Coon), who connect the murders, break the story and dub the murderer “the Boston Strangler.”
The film is much more in the vein of an investigative thriller as these two women work against the patriarchal forces of the 1960s to track down the killer. In fact, rather than suggest other serial killer films, it seems more appropriate to group “Boston Strangler” with other journalism and investigation films and series, especially those with female protagonists.
In fact, it calls to mind another recent film about female journalists tracking down a sexual predator: Maria Schrader’s rigorous 2022 film “She Said,” about the reporting team at the New York Times who broke the Harvey Weinstein story in 2016. Despite the decades between McLaughlin and Cole and Jodie Kantor and Megan Twohey (played by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan), there are interesting parallels in the uniquely feminine skills required to report a story such as this. Stream “She Said” on Peacock, or rent it elsewhere.
In setting and content, “Boston Strangler” shares DNA with Tom McCarthy’s Oscar-winning “Spotlight” (2015), about the reporting team at the Boston Globe who exposed decades of sexual abuse and cover-up within the Catholic Archdiocese. Rachel McAdams plays Sacha Pfeiffer, the lone female reporter on the Spotlight team, persuading victims to tell their stories on the record. Stream “Spotlight” on HBO Max.
