The exchange gets to the crux of the movie, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert De Niro as the fraudster: Is the toll that Madoff’s crime took on his wife and sons enough to make us feel bad for them? For decades, Ruth, Mark, and Andrew were lied to by a domineering man whose business acumen they revered. Then, after Madoff’s arrest, their finances were decimated. Ruth, who’d known Madoff since she was 13 and he was a 15-year-old lifeguard in the borough of Queens, lost the love of her life. And though the government never charged the sons or Ruth with a crime—the film makes clear the family knew nothing about the scam—the world assumed they were in on it. They were ostracized by former colleagues, neighbors, and the public. Ruth’s longtime hairdresser denied her a dye job.
Some of the most disturbing moments in the film involve Madoff’s emotionally abusive relationship with Mark (Alessandro Nivola) and Andrew (Nathan Darrow). Several times the sons, who worked for their father’s legitimate brokerage unit, ask him about the inner workings of the money management arm. De Niro leans into these moments, lashing out at the boys, screaming that they’re too stupid to understand, until they slink off, defeated.
Ruth (Michelle Pfeiffer) laments in one scene that she’s done nothing with her life except be Madoff’s wife. She’s incapable of understanding why she’s seen as Bonnie to his Clyde. Her sons refuse to speak to her when she continues to visit Madoff in the North Carolina prison where he’s serving his term. Only at the end of the movie, after the scrutiny and accusations have driven Mark to hang himself in his New York apartment in 2010, does she finally decide she can no longer stand by her husband. Today, Ruth lives in Old Greenwich, Conn., on $2.5 million the government let her keep.
Viewers might want The Wizard of Lies to elucidate how Madoff kept his crimes secret for decades and betrayed so many people. Yet he remains inscrutable. Diana Henriques, who wrote the book the movie is based on, plays herself; she interviews Madoff in prison, asking him those questions, yet she never gets good answers. The victims, Madoff says, were greedy and should have known better. People were looking for a villain to blame for the financial crisis. In the final frame, Madoff is incredulous that an unnamed journalist has compared him to serial killer Ted Bundy. He asks her, “Do you think I’m a sociopath?”
Levinson is smart to focus on the dynamics of the family, given how widely the effects of the fraud on those thousands of victims have been reported. You’d have to be a monster not to recognize the agony inherent in Mark’s suicide and in Andrew’s death from cancer in 2014. Ultimately, however, the movie disappoints for the reason Andrew articulated to the Princeton class. Even with the heartbreak, the Madoffs don’t quite make for sympathetic characters. Their riches, privilege, and apparent obliviousness to Bernie’s epic deceit prove too much to get past. Their story really is too hard to tell.
To contact the author of this story: Katherine Burton in New York at kburton@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bret Begun at bbegun@bloomberg.net.
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.
