Critic Reviews

It’s a radically empathetic film about the resonating impact of sexual abuse, as well as the personal and social forces that conspire to keep people from talking about it in public. ... The documentary feels like a conversation-realigning milestone.

It is a slow, methodical, measured, and devastating rebuttal to claims that victims of sexual assault in general and Robson and Safechuck in particular are just “in it” for the fame and the money. .... A work of extraordinary restraint. It is not salacious or leering or opportunistic. There aren’t any twists. You know where it’s going from the start. At many points, the camera just quietly waits for the subject to formulate his thoughts and find a way to keep speaking. But the power is undeniable.

The details are still appalling, but what we see and hear in Dan Reed’s riveting and sharply convincing four-hour documentary, “Leaving Neverland” (airing in two parts Sunday and Monday on HBO), supplies the viewer with an unexpected measure of calm. Even the outrage feels at last like the real deal, instead of the manufactured byproduct of tabloids and TMZ.

“Leaving Neverland” is no thriller, but it’s undeniably a kind of true-life horror movie. You walk out of it shaken, but on some level liberated by its dark exposé. ... The second half of “Leaving Neverland” is mostly devoted to how Robson and Safechuck got in touch with their trauma and began to recover from it, something that only happened after Jackson’s death. It’s an essential part of the story, and part of why this is an important film.

Leaving Neverland possesses another layer of relevance in methodically tackling the King of Pop, and a musical legacy that has long since been at the very least clouded, and for many, forever tarnished.

An appalling story of predatory child sexual abuse, told in such painful detail and at such heroic length (four hours over Sunday and Monday nights) that it’s impossible to dismiss. But what the series also makes clear, beyond almost everything else, is the power of willful blindness.

Unlike Lifetime’s recent Surviving R. Kelly, Leaving Neverland doesn’t need to make an airtight case against a wealthy pop-music legend who still has access to vulnerable young fans. Yet it’s the absence of that active threat (if not a competing narrative from the Jackson estate and a few obsessive fans) that frees up Reed to focus on a wider-ranging inquiry into what it means to be a survivor. Viewers of all genders and ages who share that experience are bound to see their own stories in that of Safechuck and Robson. That’s more than enough reason for this eloquent documentary to exist.

Leaving Neverland is not a particularly imaginative documentary, in that it sticks to a straightforward narrative, and, in its empathetic approach, doesn’t bother trying to include views from “the other side.” But ... It’s a shattering, unforgettable piece of work that will change forever the way I hear Jackson’s music.

Leaving Neverland has justifiably drawn criticism for being one-sided. It notes Robson’s lawsuit only briefly and never mentions that Safechuck filed a suit of his own. Those are flaws, but the stories of these two men are too compelling to ignore. A riveting story of childhood sexual abuse and its devastating effects on survivors and families.

Leaving Neverland brings the voices of alleged victims into the space you live in, which is an indelible feeling.