HBO airs Michael Jackson expose “Leaving Neverland” in March, while Harvey Weinstein doc “Untouchable” seeks a buyer.
Two hard-hitting British documentaries had their world premieres on Friday at Sundance 2019. Each showcases a Hollywood figure who used his fame and power to keep accusers of sexual assault at bay. Pop star Michael Jackson was acquitted by two juries of molesting minors before his death in 2009, while disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is facing his first criminal trial in New York on two accusations of sexual assault.
The difference between these two movies is that while the accusers of both Jackson and Weinstein described uncannily similar patterns of serial abuse over many years, one of the alleged perpetrators is dead, and the other is very much alive.
“Leaving Neverland”
Sundance
Backed by Film Four and HBO Documentary, which will air the four-hour doc in March, Dan Reed’s “Leaving Neverland” focuses narrowly on the experience of two 30-something men, Australian dancer/choreographer Wade Robson and Simi Valley native James Safechuck, who were both befriended and abused by Jackson starting at age seven and ten, respectively.
Robson and Safechuck both testified on Jackson’s behalf in the first child molestation trial, never admitting to anyone that he had touched them. Robson also denied any sexual contact by Jackson at the second trial. Only decades later, after the singer’s death, when both men were married and had children of their own, did they reveal to their loved ones what he had stolen from them: not only their childhoods but their families. Like other famous pedophiles, he furthered their careers and wooed their mothers while distancing them from their fathers. Both Robson and Safechuck’s parents’ marriages dissolved under the strain of living so close to Jackson’s fame.
“Untouchable”
Audiences also get a first-hand peek into the otherworldly fairy tale Neverland estate, with its elephants, tigers and chimpanzees, arcades and amusement park, along with Safechuck’s chilling description of all the nooks and crannies where Jackson’s sexual abuse took place, including a closet inside a closet. Reed wisely keeps his focus on the families, and does not comment on the surrounding details of the Jackson circus.
While they met as children — witnessing other boys who were favored by Jackson, including Macaulay Culkin, who also denied he ever touched him — they each filed separate lawsuits with the Jackson estate, after coming clean to their parents and going through therapy, which were dismissed due to the statute of limitations in California. Their video testimony is devastating. Reed asked them both to speak simply and directly about what they had been through. Robson was more polished, and had spoken to Matt Lauer on camera before.
But Safechuck was publicly revealing his experiences for the first time. In one powerful scene, he looks at gold jewelry Jackson gave him in exchange for sexual favors, his hand trembling. “It’s hard for me to not blame myself,” he tells Reed. Jackson taught him to “shelve your feelings,” and threatened the seven-year-old Robson with years in jail if he ever told. At one point when one mother was refusing to come forward on his behalf, Jackson told her: “I always get what I want.”
The movie is devastating in spelling out the intimate details of years of sexual abuse of children — both men looked red-faced and teary-eyed after the screening — and despite protestations from the estate and Jackson’s fans, it is impossible to deny.
“I don’t think there’s anything I need to say to Michael Jackson’s fans except I understand it’s hard for them to believe because, in a way, not that long ago I was in the same position they were in,” said Robson. “Even though it happened to me…I still couldn’t believe that what Michael Jackson did was a bad thing until six years ago. So I understand. We can only accept and understand something when we’re ready, and maybe we’ll never be ready. So that’s their journey.”