Louis Theroux: America's Most Hated Family in Crisis

Louis Theroux spent a week with the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas in 2007. Four years later he goes back. The congregation still pickets soldiers' funerals and public events, still tells everyone they are going to hell. But something inside has changed: some of the younger members have left, those who remain have cut their ties with the outside further, and Fred Phelps, the founder, has aged. In this documentary directed by Emma Cooper, Theroux's method is unchanged: he does not argue, does not raise his voice, only asks questions and waits for the answers to undo themselves. Its hardest passages are the conversations with young people who left the church; they had to choose between family and faith, and the cost of the choice was that their families would never see them again. Who it's for: Anyone interested in Theroux's documentary method, work on closed communities, and the sociology of religion. Who it's not for: The congregation's speech is hateful and the film does not censor it. Some will also find Theroux's method of building rapport exploitative.