Synopsis
The Most Hated Woman in America (2017) is a biographical crime drama directed by Tommy O'Haver — watch it online on iFILM. Melissa Leo plays Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the activist whose 1963 Supreme Court case struck compulsory Bible readings from US public schools. Life magazine called her "the most hated woman in America." She wore the title like a badge.
The film cuts between two timelines: O'Hair building her organization American Atheists into a national provocateur, and her 1995 kidnapping alongside her son and granddaughter Robin. Adam Scott plays the journalist piecing the crime together; Juno Temple plays Robin. The real-life ending is not a secret, which means the film has to work as character study — and Leo makes it work. Her O'Hair is combative, frequently awful and completely convinced she's right, sometimes all at once.
For a Netflix production, it takes real swings at the contradictions in its subject rather than smoothing her into a martyr. Stream The Most Hated Woman in America (2017) online on iFILM.
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