Review of Tabloid (2011) by Ethan T — 05 Nov 2011

A quite extraordinary little film from the director who brought us The Fog of War, Tabloid points the documentary camera at the infeasibly larger-than-life character of Joyce McKinney, whose fixation with a young Utah Mormon led her to fly to Britain in 1977, kidnap him from his 'missionary' work, and chain him to a bed for three days of lovemaking.

This is in part McKinney's story, and it's a remarkable tale even if her recollection of it is undeniably partisan - Kirk the Mormon was her 'eternal soulmate', she says. But the incident was taken up by the 'popular' (i.

E. tabloid) press in the UK, with the Mirror ramping up the salacious muck-raking and the rival Express taking McKinney's side. Through the instant notoriety of the British criminal courts and a subsequent, almost equally bizarre brush with fame in the 21st century as the owner of a pioneering set of cloned puppies, McKinney emerges as a true individual, albeit an individual who is, in the words of one of her tabloid chroniclers, 'barking mad'.

Morris' Tabloid is a must-see for anyone with an interest in media story-telling and its sometimes tenuous relation to the truth.