HBO’s “The Vow” Uncovers the Truth about NΧΙVM
(Photo via HBO)
By Veronica Longo
A new, 9-episode docuseries produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer examines how NXIVM was able to enrapture so many of Hollywood’s elite so quickly. Released on Aug. 23, “The Vow” highlights the contrast between former members’ initial attraction to the cult and their disillusionment about its true nature and crimes.
Noujaim and Amer, whose previous works include “The Great Hack” (2019), created this series to uncover the hidden truths behind the cult founded in 1998 by Keith Ranier and Nancy Salzman. NXIVM appeared on the surface to be a self-help community for professional development championed by several actors and directors across Hollywood. The group enjoyed positive feedback worldwide. Even the Dalai Lama praised it in its prime and spoke at an event where he honored Raniere with traditional ceremonial Tibetan garb.
In the first episode, viewers are introduced to Mark Vicente, Sarah Edmondson, and Bonnie Piesse, all long-standing NXIVM members who attended the Executive Success Program, a 5-day convention. The series provides background on how they came to join NXIVM and shows all of the seemingly positive changes that occurred in their lives as a result. Mark and Bonnie, for example, end up getting married. However, Bonnie’s words to Mark ominously foreshadow what’s to come when the episode ends with her words: “there are a lot of things that I am starting to see in the organization that are not right.”
After the first episode, “The Vow” takes a dark turn, delving into the details of why and how members sought to leave the group. Layers are peeled off one-by-one as Mark, Sarah, and Bonnie descend deeper into the culture of NXIVM. They find evidence of a secret organization within their group, called the Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS. Convinced to take part in the order’s vow of obedience, Sarah agrees to offer up a compromising video of herself as collateral. She falls down the rabbit hole into a world where submission is expected and where she has essentially become a slave. She keeps her vow secret but begins to ask questions when it becomes clear that crimes are taking place within the program. This revelation acts as the catalyst, giving Sarah, Mark, and Bonnie the courage to leave NXIVM.
Even after deciding to leave, the main characters find it difficult to cut all ties. They are worried about all the younger people who had also been recruited into NXIVM’s ranks. These young, naive starlets were the real target, and most of them were a part of DOS. This is what led them to reach out to a blogger to leak the information about the secretive organization while keeping their identities anonymous. It caused ripples in the community, and the fallout gave more people the courage to leave.
Those who left the group feared legal fallout from the organization since NXIVM, equipped with top legal representation, began to threaten all the former members with legal action. While the ex-members had released a plethora of information about the cult’s illicit practices, none of them had yet officially gone on the record. To save more of the younger recruits, some former members chose to go on the record in a New York Times expose on the group, putting themselves in great danger.
Although only five of the nine episodes have so far been released, “The Vow” does not fail to engage its audience. Cults are often very secretive, so people rarely have access to visuals that can help them understand what a cult looks like. The directors do a fantastic job showing how easy it can be for anyone to fall prey to deception such as those perpetrated by NXIVM.
“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” Raises the Bar for Film Surrealism
(Photo via Netflix)
By Brittany Aufiero
A psychological thriller and skillful enterprise in the art of subdued horror, director Charlie Kaufman’s latest film purports to follow the story of a young woman (Jessie Buckley) who contemplates the longevity of her relationship during an evening of “meet-the-parents” with her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons). Released Aug. 28 in select theaters and available on Netflix as of Sep. 4, the apparently simple premise of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is made complicated as viewers realize that the truth is subjective and nothing is truly as it seems in the lives of this young couple.
Although the young woman’s perspective is front-and-center, including voice-over monologues and asides that tell viewers exactly what she’s thinking, her name is never made entirely clear. She is Lucy, then Lucia, then Louisa - a revolving door of L-starting names, never claiming a single one for more than a moment. Her profession, too, changes at key moments in the film, such as when Jake beams while telling his parents over dinner that she is an artist, but later mentions she is studying microbiology, then gerontology.
The strangeness begins with her, but Jake and his family are also an experiment in contradictions. While he is quiet and cheerful when alone with his girlfriend, he’s quick to anger in the presence of his parents, who seem to embarrass him. In one scene he shouts and slams his fists on the dinner table, furious that his mother pronounced the name of a game he was good at in childhood wrong. His parents only deepen the unease. His mother (Toni Collette) ricochets between periods of sullenness and intense euphoria - crying, speaking loudly, and laughing at inappropriate moments. Jake’s father (David Thewlis), on the other hand, looks worn and wears a bandage on his forehead that is never explained.
Jake (Jesse Plemons) and his girlfriend (Jessie Buckley) prepare to sit down to dinner with his parents (Left to Right: Toni Collette and David Thewlis) in his childhood home. (Photo via of Netflix)
“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is a master director’s dream realized, and at the dinner our unnamed - or overly named - narrator sees firsthand what the rest of her life will look like if she and Jake remain together. Jake’s parents grow old and fragile between one scene and the next. Jake’s father is in full control of his mental faculties in one moment, and then suffering from the late stages of dementia minutes later. She begs Jake to take her home as she watched him spoon-feed his dying mother, who was only minutes ago in good health, sipping wine. Kaufman confronts mortality and the human ego with startling clarity as the narrator realizes that she will eventually exist to Jake merely as a source of validation for his life choices.
Kaufman is no stranger to viewer speculation on the hidden messages and underlying meanings in his projects. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as a writer for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” in 2005 and made his directorial debut in 2008 with the film “Synecdoche, New York,” a postmodern comedy-drama which also blurs the lines between reality and fiction.
A gem of surrealism, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” evokes feelings of existential dread but does so while appealing to our most intrinsic desire to understand what we are watching. Our narrator is relatable and women will empathize with the conflicting feelings she voices on her relationship with Jake. Jake, too, is an enigma up until nearly the very end, when we can finally start to piece together the reality of what is going on. It’s surely a film you’ll need to experience twice, but you’ll savor every minute of it.
Lehman Students Mourn the Death of Chadwick Boseman
(Photo via Victoria Will/Invision/AP)
By Esgardo Castelan
Actor Chadwick Boseman is perhaps best known as T’Challa, King of Wakanda in the MCU’s “Black Panther,” but his career was only just beginning when he passed away from stage 4 colon cancer on Aug. 28, at the age of 43. As one of the first black male actors to star as the title-lead in a superhero film, his death has hit the Lehman community especially hard.
“Considering how he acted in his biggest movies while undergoing extensive cancer treatment, his work ethic was amazing,” said Emeka Bouszer, 21, a Lehman senior studying computer science. “I related heavily with the characters that he played as a black male myself.”
Boseman made his breakthrough as a performer in 2013 when he was cast as Jackie Robinson in “42,” a biographical film about the baseball player. During the span of his career, he became a recognizable actor through his roles on other projects, including the 2014 film “Get On Up,” in which he starred as singer James Brown, “Marshall” (2017) where he played Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and even as recently as the 2019 film “21 Bridges.”
According to Boseman’s family members and others closest to him, he first received his cancer diagnosis in 2016 and underwent both surgeries and chemotherapy in the four years since then, all while continuing to act and star in well-loved films.
Boseman’s portrayals of strong, influential black men and characters has inspired and empowered black people around the globe. 27-year-old recent Lehman graduate Michael Cello stated, “He gave us something to be proud of because he represented a strong character in real life.” For black communities across the country, Boseman existed as a symbol of hope and success, showing them that they are all superheroes in their own right.
In light of current Black Lives Matter protests and discussions going on across the country in response to instances of police brutality - including the murder of Louisville, KY resident Breonna Taylor as she slept in her home this past March, as well as George Floyd’s murder while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May - Boseman’s death has dealt a significant blow to black communities.
In a PBS News article by Joshua Barajas, clinical psychologist and associate professor at University of Ottawa’s School of Psychology Monica Williams stated, “Every black person I know is exhausted just from life right now.”
The impact of Boseman’s death is acutely felt by Lehman students, many of whom looked up to Boseman and are in mourning. Multiple Lehman students have paid homage to Chadwick by posting his picture on their Instagram, Facebook and Twitter feeds, acknowledging his influence and expressing that he will be missed.
Lehman senior and exercise science major Ferdinand Essizewa, 22, said “it was tough. I’m African and I love to be in touch with my roots. But there was absolutely no piece of media here that allowed me to feel unique or special [other] than Black Panther.”