the result is a weirdly bland and inhibited TV movie, flatly directed and fundamentally constrained by its fence-sitting inability to decide if Manson's obedient female slayers were essentially victims or murderers of equal culpability
Matt Smith is miscast as Charles Manson in this innovative, frustrating film; This is an innovative, occasionally provocative, often frustrating film, but one whose perspectives on guilt and victimhood offer a new angle on a notorious case
"Charlie Says" is absorbing if only intermittently effective, but it has the distinction of bringing a female gaze to arguably the most notorious crime spree in American history