All Good Things

In this awkward drift from documentary to docudrama, Capturing the Friedmans director Andrew Jarecki revisits the case of New York real-estate scion Robert Durst, whose wife Kathie went missing in 1982, presumably on account of having been murdered by him. With Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst as the probable sociopath and his breath-of-fresh-air bride, plus Frank Langella as a stern and snobby patriarch, the movie has some strong advantages. But they’re not enough to make up for the deficiencies in Jarecki’s plodding direction and the soapy made-for-TV stuff of Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling’s script. Late in the game, Philip Baker Hall shows up in an important supporting role to remind everyone that less is more, but he too seems squandered by a film whose period-accurate costumes wind up being more compelling than the sad true story they decorate.