By Theresa Rodewald.
Whether the film wants its audience to revel in or ignore the casual, low-key sexism and the gratifying violence towards women is unclear. But it definitely expects us to cut it more slack.”
Above Suspicion could have been an analysis of privilege and power, of patriarchal structures and how people internalise and reproduce them. Instead, the film draws on harmful clichés and ends up blaming the main protagonist for her own murder.
Based on the non-fiction book by Joe Sharkey, Above Suspicion revolves around the events that lead to the murder of FBI informant Susan Smith (Emilia Clarke) by agent Mark Putnam (Jack Huston) in 1989. Director Phillip Noyce (The Quiet American [2002]) and screenwriter Chris Gerolamo (Mississippi Burning [1988]) seem to be under the impression that featuring a voice-over narration by Susan Smith is the same as giving her a voice. Her voice-over, however, does not change the fact that this is not her story. The film plays a game of “he said, she said” and ends up telling the story mainly from Mark Putnam’s perspective. It is not surprising, though all the more distressing, that Putnam quite literally has the last word.
When telling the story of an FBI agent, a man in power, who murdered his informant, a young, disenfranchised woman who struggled with drug addiction, the idea of showing both sides is deeply problematic. Also, Putnam’s is the culturally entrenched narrative; the story of a femme fatale who seduces a well-intentioned man and brings tragedy upon herself has been told one too many times. Suggesting that Putnam simply could not help himself, that he was lured into the clutches of an attractive but unstable young woman, is not just silly, it is toxic. Failing to emphasise that Putnam exploits and psychologically manipulates Smith long before he kills her means perpetuating harmful ideas about ultimately decent men who commit “crimes of passion.”
This is not to say the film should have depicted Putnam as a monster. It could have examined the internalised misogyny that facilitated him taking advantage of a vulnerable woman and restoring to murder when he felt threatened by her. By not reiterating Putnam’s account of events, Above Suspicion could have exposed the sexism inherent in our culture without excusing his behaviour or blaming Susan Smith for her own murder.
And still, the men involved believe the movie to “reflect the female gaze” as author Joe Sharkey has stated. Sharkey, Noyce, and Gerolamo have obviously failed to understand what the female gaze entails. The film’s rudimentary critique of patriarchy is buried so deep under clichés and gratifying violence that it is almost impossible to see. Scenes of assault are frequent, almost exclusively directed towards Susan and revel in her powerlessness. Above Suspicion depicts violence against women with what is definitely a male gaze.
In order to tell Susan Smith’s story, the film should have established an emotional connection to her. Emilia Clarke gives her all; she is a charismatic and skilled actor but the film is so cold towards her character that it prevents us from getting close to her. By looking at Susan from the outside, the film makes it difficult to understand why she initiates the affair when it would otherwise have been apparent that she is used to being treated as a means to an end, associated only with the economic or sexual value she has to the men around her.
The main problem with not addressing the systemic nature of abuse, misogyny, and poverty is that the film ultimately implies that Susan Smith made choices that led her down a certain path when she did not have choices to begin with. What she would have needed is support, someone to be there for her. To Putnam, she is a means to an end. What he seems to regret most is starting the affair, not because it hurt Smith but because it eventually destroyed his career and family life. The film should have focused on this deeply unsettling outlook on life and the commodification of intimacy it stems from. Instead, it tries to capitalise on the intersecting of sex and crime.
All of this is hugely disappointing because everyone involved could have done so much better. Phillip Noyce has made films like Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), a story told with great empathy that, at the time, was not afraid to go against the grain of Australian politics. Above Suspicion does not do Susan Smith or her story justice, it does not get to the root of the problem, it is arduous to watch. Whether the film wants its audience to revel in or ignore the casual, low-key sexism and the gratifying violence towards women is unclear. But it definitely expects us to cut it more slack than it deserves to read a critique into it that it was not brave or aware enough to actually articulate.
Theresa Rodewald, MA, studied Cinema Studies at Stockholm University in Sweden and Cultural Studies in Germany and Ireland. She writes for a number of independent film magazines, including L-MAG and Berliner Filmfestivals, and has written about critiques of capitalism in current gangster films, images of masculinity in Scarface (1932) and the representation of queer women in mainstream cinema. She is a contributor to the forthcoming David Fincher’s Zodiac: Cinema of Investigation and (Mis)Interpretation (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press).
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