For those who haven’t seen Marina Zenovich‘s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, it’s playing in New York (at the Quad Cinema on West 13th Street), and will open Friday in Boston and Los Angeles. If you haven’t yet seen this essential and riveting legal drama, here’s another way.

It’s been on HBO, but I first saw it at a theatre in Park City, Utah, last January, and I got a bit more of a jolt from the communal experience (leaning forward in my seat, sensing the concentration of others) than from the HBO viewing that I allowed myself two or three weeks ago. This is a very sharp and absorbing doc that doesn’t miss a trick, and which leaves you filled and fortified. Before seeing anything like this I always go to the club for the treadmill and weights, and then I’ll down a Red Bull and a double cappuccino kicker. Docs always play better when you’re cranked.
I wonder how many of the hellfire-and-brimstone Polanski haters who visit this site have seen it?