The Manacled Mormon

Usually Mormons are manacled to keep themselves from masturbating, but if Kirk Anderson is to be believed, he was kidnapped and manacled spread-eagle, as  a tabloid journalist delights in telling us repeatedly in Errol Morris’ eccentric new film, to a bed in a bed-and-breakfast in bucolic Devonshire. Joyce McKinney has specifically chosen the place for its fairy tale connotations and treated their lost weekend as her honeymoon, thinking she had succeeded finally in getting “Cult Kirk” back to Kirk 1.

McKinney certainly makes for a fascinating interview subject. A kind of grown-up version of JonBenet Ramsey; like Ramsey, she participated in child beauty pageants and talent shows. A dyed-in-the wool romantic with a tenuous grasp on reality, McKinney is all the more endearing because of  her story, including being eaten alive by rapacious tabloid journalists relying on dirty tricks right out of today’s News of the World headlines.  It’s a sympathetic portrait, if ultimately a sad one, since her romantic obsession with Anderson has relegated McKinney to a lifetime of loneliness.

Since we don’t have Kirk’s side of the story (he still lives in Salt Lake, was contacted but refused to participate), we’re treated to a pastiche of interviews from an ex-Mormon, here to fill us in on deep doctrine, two former tabloid reporters who covered the story, and the pilot she hired to fly her and her cohort to England in order to kidnap Anderson.

Ultimately, the film is about self-deception, the lengths people will go to maintain their delusions. Anderson is convincingly portrayed as a troubled soul who has to stick to his story of being kidnapped and raped lest he face far more damning eternal consequences including excommunication.

McKinney, too, is unable to be completely truthful with herself. For one, she continues to carry a torch for Anderson, developed agoraphobia and lived in exile for years on her parents’ property where she became something of a dog nut. In addition, she maintains her innocence and never quite comes clean on how she raised the money to fund her kidnapping jaunt.

Morris makes a strong case for the idea that many of her shenanigans, including her late-in-life resurrection in the tabloids for cloning her beloved former dog, Booger, is the result of her working as a dominatrix and call girl.

One of the recurring motifs is McKinney trying to tell her own story, but being stymied for various reasons for years. The film ends with her story still being a little murky, which is exactly why I liked it.

Seeing the film in Salt Lake was an added pleasure. The in-crowd got and laughed at all the Mormon references, including the significant and repeated use of clips from the anti-Mormon cartoon from J. Edward Decker’s hoaky pabulum, The God Makers.

Four stars and one of them is Kolob.

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