Suburban Fury

A must-see documentary about not just a would-be assassin and moment in American history, but a snapshot of the Bay Area during turbulent times.

Along with the wild psychology of “Suburban Fury,” Devor evokes the era’s wild politics, which, for all its ideological phantasmagoria, create unimpeachable realities.

The movie functions mostly as personal testimony — a riveting, if too often searching, autobiography of a figure whose political transformation is haunted by narrative inconsistencies.

What this story reminds us isn’t that a woman named Sara Jane Moore was radicalized into action, but that history — for all of the larger than life sweep that word implies — is ultimately written on a level too personal for textbooks to ever understand.

Suburban Fury is a reminder that even the most candid historical figures are never fully transparent.

Robinson Devor is less interested in reconciling Sara Jane Moore’s contradictory allegiances than in exposing how they were formed.