'Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich' review - Straightforward and unsettling

If you believe there is no such thing as pure evil and people are the product of their circumstance, this docu-series might make you re-evaluate such a conviction.

The American financier was like a one-dimensional villain from movies.

"Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction”— I first heard this from Bharath Patteri (Mammootty) in the Malayalam investigative thriller, The Truth (1998), where he finally reveals the real criminal of a high-profile assassination.

The reveal is shocking because you wouldn’t expect such a person to be a cold-blooded killer. The line kept resonating while watching Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich because the very existence of such a sinister personality was beyond imagination.

The American financier was like a one-dimensional villain from movies. If you believe there is no such thing as pure evil and people are the product of their circumstance, this docu-series might make you re-evaluate such a conviction.

Jeffery Epstein is filthy rich. He owns a mansion on the Palm Beach, Florida, a vacation house in New Mexico, one in Paris, and another residence in New York.

He also owns a private island in the Caribbean and has private jets. With money comes power, and with it, connections.

WATCH TRAILER:

Throughout the series, we see pictures of Epstein with former US president Bill Clinton, Woody Allen, Harvey Weinstein, and Donald Trump.

The docu-series is predominantly the accounts of Epstein’s victims, who recount how they were manipulated, abused, and initiated into sex when they were underage. His victims were as young as 14.

Epstein’s modus operandi involved inviting these girls to his place to give him a massage for 200 dollars and coerce them into sex.

He would then ask them to bring in their friends. In this process, he created ‘a molestation pyramid scheme’ involving dozens of underage children, who were also lent out to his friends.

Things get horrific with every passing episode as it peals one layer after the other to reveal the rotten core of this personality and a system that aided him. 

Despite being a straight-forward series with lesser heard information, it still makes a significant achievement in the way of moving its focus from the perpetrator to the victims, who were censured and shamed over the years.

It even documents the accounts of one of his victims, who recruited dozens of underage girls for Epstein.

Doing away with a narrator, Bryant lets the victims do the talking, which doesn’t happen often. This is how it should be.

It should always be about them. It should only be about our empathy. And the first step is to listen. And listen, we should.