With all the talk from the manosphere, conservatives, and online trolls about how movies are “woke” now, it ponders a question as to why has Copycat become so popular again as it was one of the highest streaming movies on Netflix.
Released one month after the more anticipated Se7en, it follows a similar premise of two main protagonists tracking a serial killer with a particular method that toys with the investigation. The movie built up a good pre-release publicity as Harry Connick Jr. was going to be playing a serial killer. Yet, Connick has a smaller role that is mostly a glorified cameo.
While Se7en is set in an unspecified metropolitan city, it was filmed in the Los Angeles area but intended to be a city of moral decay and rampant crime. Copycat is set in the San Francisco Bay area which is known more for its beauty and sunny atmosphere. Dr. Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver) has become reclusive suffering the trauma of being attacked by Darryl Lee Cullum (Connick). Hudson is a respective criminal psychologist who testified at Cullum’s trial disproving his insanity claim.
Hudson wrote some bestsellers and has made some money. Yet, she suffers from agoraphobia refusing even to step out into the hallway of her condo to get the newspaper. Her assistant, Andy (John Rothman), pretty much does all the errands for her and even helps her when she has panic attacks. She notices in the newspapers someone has killed a young woman recreating a crime from the Boston Strangler case.
Hudson contacts the San Francisco Police Department and begins to help Inspectors Mary Jane Monahan (Holly Hunter) and Reuben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney). But yet the killer begins to change the modus operandi copying a crime of the Hillside Stranglers, then David Berkowitz, aka Son of Sam. But where Se7en kept the killer’s identity a secret until the final act, we know who the killer is all along.
The killer is a young man Peter Foley (William McNamara). And like Se7en, we see him a lot sooner than we think. Where as in that movie, Kevin Spacey appears as a photographer on a stairwell, Peter appears in the beginning of the movie along with other young men at the college where Hudson was speaking prior to being attacked by Cullum. This incident has created a riff between Hudson and the SFPD as Cullum was hiding in the restroom but the police were tasked with protecting Hudson let their guard down.
So, who blames who when a cop dies? Even though Hudson was unable to protect the cop who Cullum killed, you can sense some bitterness among the police department and Hudson, herself, is hostile toward them as she considers them to be sloppy in their investigation at first.
The casting of Hunter, who is a little over five-feet tall and Weaver who is about six-feet tall, presents a nice contrast. Hudson is almost afraid of her own shadow shut up in her condo for over a year drinking too much. On the flip side, Monahan is a short women in a mostly male-dominated profession where she questions a uniformed police officer first on the scene of a crime the way a mother questions her child when she knows he’s omitting something.
Monahan’s supervisor, Lt. Thomas Quinn (J.E. Freeman), is supportive when she does a good job but isn’t going to let her get away with stuff when it’s reported in the media. Goetz is a young officer and there’s suspicion that he might have a crush on Hudson but also has his own partner. This has created friction with fellow investigator Inspector Nicoletti (Will Patton) who thinks he ought be given lead on the investigation as well as take Hudson to bed every night.
There’s similarities with The Silence of the Lambs in the way it examines the murders of women through the eyes of women law enforcement officers. Jodie Foster, herself, is a woman in shorter stature who is working in a profession that is male-dominated. The movie hints at the relationships between men and women in our society but never really examines it. This may be because of the movie’s troubled post-production which I will discuss later.
Andy is gay, which is probably the reason Hudson has him as her assistant. He’s a man but she’s knows there’s nothing there. Hudson even mentions she misses not having sex. Goetz is teased for spending all night watching over Hudson’s place but there’s a feeling it was done more out of a platonic and civil duty. Hudson is also a celebrity so that might be what attracts Goetz.
The movie avoids any reasoning for Peter’s actions. This was due to a lot of the changes in the post-production. The script specifies that Foley was a student of Hudson’s and fascinated with her. That’s why he’s sitting in the lecture hall at the beginning of the movie. There was also a flashback to where Peter was abused by his mother as a children. This helps explains the strained relationship between Peter and his wife (Rebecca Klinger) who is obviously older than him. She only appears in a few scenes where she’s needy and almost condescending which might explain his desire to targer women.
At the time of the movie’s filming, McNamara was approaching 30, even though his blondish hair and young features makes him look younger. McNamara had appeared earlier in his career as a younger version of Mark Harmon in Stealing Home. (Incidentally, Harmon had played Ted Bundy in the miniseries The Deliberate Stranger.) McNamara gives off those Bundy vibes himself, which may have been why he was chosen.
However, McNamara has said in recent interviews how he played the role a lot differently and had received bad reviews from test audiences and studio executives. Rewrites and reshoots were ordered. Through Roddy McDowall, McNamara was put in touch with Sir Anthony Hopkins who instructed him to play the role with more charisma and playfulness. McNamara said the role left him typecast as playing bad guys and hurt his personal life with women.
Well, Hopkins once dated Martha Stewart but she cut it off. Sometimes, the craft has its sacrifices. To be honest, nothing against McNamara, but he never had that spark or pizazz that other actors like Edward Norton, Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio had from the 1990s. His screen credits up to this point weren’t too promising either. His filmography of Stealing Home, Dream a Little Dream and Chasers weren’t the best reviewed movies.
It actually works better that McNamara wasn’t as big as Connick. You can see how someone who looks like a preppy person could’ve approached women with more confidence before abducting them. Yet things like this happen in movies where an actor does so well, it hurts their career. Take how well Thomas F. Wilson and William Zabka played bullies in the 1980s. It was hard for them to break out.
Despite that, I feel the movie is far more appropriate today than it was 30 years ago, which probably explains its popularity. Peter is never really seen committing the murders of the women, but of the men. This keeps it from coming another slasher-style thriller. By seeing the aftermath through the eyes of Hudson and Monahan, it’s not as exploited.
While it’s not as good as Silence of the Lambs and not as gritty as Se7en, it gives us two complex main characters played well by Weaver and Hunter. This was Hunter’s first role after her Oscar-winning performance in The Piano. It might be her most underrated role. As for Weaver, it’s mostly a reactionary role, which is a change since she has been mostly known for her take-charge type of roles most notably as Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise.
Very few movies at the time were willing to take a lot at post-traumatic stress. It treats her agoraphobia and panic attacks seriously. There’s a feeling that Hudson wants to get out and do things like she used to, but she can’t out of the terror. I don’t think all movies need to reassess years later. Besides, Copycat received a lot of good reviews and made a lot of money, so it had something that audiences 30 years ago liked too.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 