This is a look at the life and death of the champion cyclist who was murdered for a stupid reason.
This is a good look at a lovely young woman whose life was taken much too early. The film is a both a celebration of her life and a look at the circumstances of her death. The celebration part is expertly handled. The investigative portion is a bit lacking despite the fact that most of the film focuses on the hunt for the killer.
The problem is that the killer Kaitlin Armstrong is largely a cipher. As someone says about her early on, Kaitlin was the girl who stood next to Colin Strickland but was never introduced. That's kind of the case here. We don't really get any sense of who she is other than she was dating Strickland and was being cheated on by Strickland with multiple girls. Who is she? We don't know other than a few random facts.
The film also bobbles it's discussion of Colin Strickland. Yes, we get some basic facts, particularly he was just a cyclist who had a knack for manipulating women, but there is no sense of who he is. Even when he briefly talks to the filmmakers at the end there is nothing there. We get no sense of his feelings, particularly concerning how he felt about his long time girlfriend killing the new girl in his life. He's just this guy who has retreated from the world despite setting in motion a murder. There could have been a whole section on how stupid people destroy the people in their lives but there is nothing.
I wanted to know more.
The film never balances the desire to be a celebration of Wilson's life with an examination of her death. The search for her killer is the narrative thread but once that is resolved the film effectively ends about 20 minutes before the end credits roll. It is as if we have been told everything the filmmakers are going to say, and then kept going.
The film isn't bad, it's just not as great as it could have been had it given us more details about the people around Wilson
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