Mia Farrow is still playing.
In Part 1 of HBO’s blistering new docuseries, Allen v. Farrow, the actress, who appears as prim and tense as the state of Connecticut, recounts how she was emotionally mutilated by filmmaker Woody Allen, who dumped her. for a grown daughter and then, she claims, to harass her other prepubescent girl child.
It’s a riveting, yet strangely antiseptic performance of an actress who made her life’s work by taking revenge from the man who did her wrong.
The problem is that I don’t think a word of it, with the possible exceptions of ‘and’ and ‘but’, is true.
And once again, Mia’s scorched revenge fantasy has claimed an innocent victim – her daughter, Dylan, who was allegedly abused by Woody when she was 7 years old. As she has for decades, Mia Dylan, now 35, exploits her mentally mutilating and throws her under the Woody bus in a twisted attempt to destroy the life, reputation and career of her former lover.
Why did the filmmakers cynically encourage her? Maybe because this horror makes for a better story than the one that actually happened.
While watching Volume 1, released on Sunday, it is helpful to compare Mia’s current story of betrayal and endless dining at bustling restaurants with the story she testified in a 1993 New York City courtroom, when Woody sued her for the custody of the three children. they share.
A pivotal point in the episode comes when Mia reveals she found Polaroid photos of her daughter Soon-Yi Previn in Woody’s apartment across from Central Park. In the photos, Soon-Yi is naked.
According to Mia’s revisionist history of the event, Soon-Yi, now 50, is not only captivated, but the subject of hardcore ‘pornography’ – straight out of ‘Hustler’.
The discovery of the kinky skin trove prompted Mia to quickly return to her apartment, trembling, she now says, to face her daughter.
‘Soon-Yi was home and I remember saying that. “I found the photos,” Farrow remembers “suddenly.” ‘And she said,’ What pictures? ‘And I said,’ The photos Woody took. ‘ And she started to cry and I started to cry and I said, “No, no, it’s not your fault.” And she was beside herself. “
Sweet.
And apparently not true.
When Mia, now 76, testified in court some 28 years ago, no one cried. Instead, after confronting Soon-Yi with the purely ‘naked’ pictures, Mia testified that her daughter taunted her mother.
“The person he sleeps with [Woody] is the one with the relationship, ” Mia bitterly recalled Soon-Yi said. And then Mia admitted in the stands that she beat and beat the young woman.
“I’m not proud,” Mia testified coolly.
In addition to this ugly – but honest – display of anger, I saw an exhibit in the courtroom questioning Mia’s common sense. It was a picture of Mia with her huge group of biological and adopted children. Mia had put metal poles in everyone’s chest to show Woody how his actions with Soon-Yi had broken their hearts.
There were other deviations on television from the story she spun.
Mia says in the documentary that a therapist around 1990 expressed the opinion that Woody was acting ‘inappropriate’, but not sexually, towards Dylan around 1990, when Mia was still with him. She mentions this to explain why she stayed with Woody and had a child with him.
But the likely truth is much simpler – that no child abuse has taken place. Not, as Mia claimed, in her Connecticut home. Nowhere. (Woody has steadfastly denied it ever happened.)
Mia was given primary custody of her children, but she was never completely right.
The fact remains that, as much as Mia and her supporters would like the abuse to be true, New York State authorities said they could not prove the allegations and Connecticut’s child abuse experts concluded that Mia Dylan may have ‘coached’ to lie about. it. Mia’s adopted son, Moses, 43, has also long maintained that his mother had Dylan ‘brainwashed’ into believing it.
Woody and Soon-Yi have been married since 1997 and have two adopted daughters. There has never been another sexual assault charge against him, before or after the one with Dylan. Experts in the field say that those who attack young people commit these crimes repeatedly.
The sad thing is, Dylan Farrow seems to believe she was Woody’s prey. She may never recover from these seemingly false memories.
The filmmakers, and Mia Farrow, should be ashamed of that.