Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart

Many will still remember the case of Pamela Smart, a young and pretty high school teacher in a small New Hampshire town whose husband was murdered in 1990—a crime that Smart was alleged to have planned, recruiting a teenage lover to pull the trigger. Filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar's HBO-produced documentary Captivated doesn't attempt to confirm Smart's guilt or argue for her innocence, but rather it focuses on the national media madness surrounding the case, suggesting that Smart was essentially tried and convicted in the mainstream press and on tabloid television shows. Serving up an exhaustive, day-by-day overview of news coverage of the investigation and courtroom drama, the film makes a strong argument that America became entranced by the lurid details of Smart's sexual relationship with a student killer, her lack of grief for her husband during media interviews, and even photos of her in a bikini that were taken before she was married. These cumulative details added up to a kind of “Scarlet Letter” syndrome that doomed Smart regardless of the facts (it didn't help that the trial judge did not sequester jury members, who regularly went home at night and heard Smart condemned on television). Smart herself (who is currently serving a life sentence) is interviewed here, and details about her years in prison are horrifying: she was raped by a guard and became a “punching bag” for other inmates. An interesting look back at a high-profile case (which inspired both a TV movie starring Helen Hunt, and Gus Van Sant's To Die For, with Nicole Kidman), this is recommended. (T. Keogh)