Spoiler warning: major spoilers for Unabomber below.

I went into Unabomber interested because obviously the case itself is fascinating, but I did not expect this movie to be this freaking good. And I definitely did not expect Jacob Tremblay to be the one I walked away talking about the most.

Holy shit, this kid is good. Actually, let me correct that. He is not a kid anymore, and this performance made that very clear. There were entire stretches where I genuinely forgot I was watching Jacob Tremblay. He completely disappeared into young Ted Kaczynski, especially once the Harvard experiments started getting darker.

There is one moment during one of the debates where almost nothing changes on his face, but you can see it in his eyes. That was the moment. You could literally see the betrayal, anger and realization hit him all at once. It was ridiculously good.

The Two Timelines Actually Work

The movie jumps back and forth between young Ted at Harvard beginning in 1958 and the FBI investigation closing in on him decades later. Usually I get annoyed when a movie jumps timelines too much, especially when one storyline is way stronger than the other, but that really did not happen here. The two timelines actually worked really well together.

In the present-day storyline, Shailene Woodley plays Joanne Miller, who becomes increasingly convinced Ted is their guy even when everyone else is not quite ready to go there with her. Shailene is excellent here. Joanne is smart, stubborn and constantly thinking. She follows something in the evidence she just cannot shake, even taking personal days to keep following the lead when the official investigation is not moving the way she thinks it should.

And it never felt like one of those ridiculous movie FBI agents who magically knows everything while everyone else is stupid. She had to work for it.

Watching her sit down with David Kaczynski and his wife while they go through Ted’s old writing was one of the better present-day scenes. David does not want to believe his brother could possibly be the Unabomber. His wife, on the other hand, is basically sitting there like, “this sounds exactly like Ted.” David wants them to prove it is not him.

Then Joanne finds what looks like a rough draft of the manifesto. That is when she calls her captain and says, “I got him.” And yeah, that moment absolutely worked.

Alexander Ludwig was also a really nice surprise because apparently this movie decided to just casually throw people I like at me. He and Shailene work really well together too, especially once they start disagreeing over how far Joanne is willing to follow her instincts.

If you read my pre-release piece about Jacob Tremblay and Unabomber, you already know I was curious to see whether this role would really feel like a turning point for him. It absolutely did.

The Harvard Stuff Could Have Gone Very Wrong

But the Harvard storyline is where this movie could have completely lost me.

Ted is only sixteen when he gets to Harvard. He is incredibly intelligent, socially awkward and clearly feels different from everyone around him. He desperately wants to participate in Henry Murray’s study, and when his father refuses to give permission, Ted literally forges the parental consent form himself so he can get in.

That detail matters, because the movie never really lets you pretend Ted was some innocent kid dragged into this against his will. He wanted in. At least at first.

Murray, played by Russell Crowe, and Christiana Morgan, played by Annabelle Wallis, make Ted feel understood. They talk to him, include him and reassure him when he admits he feels weird or like something is wrong with him.

And I swear the whole thing started reminding me of how cults pull people in. Not literally, obviously, but the way they make someone feel special, understood and included before turning around and using what they learn against them.

That is exactly what starts happening.

The “debates” get more and more disturbing. Ted is hooked up to sensors while another man deliberately antagonizes him, insults his ideas, taps his fingers, tells him what he is saying is stupid and basically does everything possible to piss him off. At first, the sensors are going crazy even though Ted is trying to stay composed. Then eventually they stop.

Ted stops reacting.

And Murray’s response is basically that they need to break him again.

That was the moment where I was like, oh this dude is an asshole.

And it gets worse. Ted finds out the personal conversations he thought he was having with Murray were being recorded and then used against him during the experiments. Stuff he told Murray privately suddenly becomes ammunition.

And again, Jacob Tremblay barely has to do anything. You can see the exact moment Ted realizes what they did. That is where his performance really got me.

Context Without Excusing Him

But one thing I really appreciated was that the movie never used any of this as an excuse for Ted Kaczynski. That would have completely ruined it for me.

It would have been really easy to make this into, “look what Harvard did to him, they created the Unabomber.” But that is not what the movie does. If anything, movie-Ted seems to have Murray and Morgan eating out of his hand for quite a while too.

Eventually, Ted stops submitting to what they are doing and starts studying them right back. By the end, he is calling Murray out on all of his bullshit and clearly knows exactly where to hit him.

Murray asks Ted why he kept coming back if he knew what was going on. Ted basically says it was to show him what he could do.

That line was creepy as hell.

Then Ted gives Murray a parting gift. And after spending the entire movie watching Ted send packages, the movie takes forever showing Murray open this thing. I was sitting there waiting for something horrible to happen.

Nothing does. It is a copy of Moby-Dick, with one very pointed passage underlined: “however baby man may brag of his science and skill … for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him.”

And honestly, I liked that even more than if they had done something dramatic. Murray had already used Moby-Dick in his teaching, so Ted basically took something Murray valued and turned it back on him. The message was enough.

At the same time, the present-day task force is closing in on Ted. The way the movie keeps cutting between young Ted and the FBI finally getting adult Ted is seriously intense. Then they get him. And the team celebrates.

Meanwhile, young Ted basically just keeps going.

Then the movie ends with actual recordings of Ted, old pictures of him, pictures of the house, and photos from when he was captured. That shit was creepy. He was way too intelligent for his own good.

But again, the movie does not try to make you feel sorry for him or excuse what he did. If anything, it shows that a lot of his ideologies were there for quite some time.

The Harvard experiments may have affected him. They may have made things worse. They may have helped shape certain parts of him. But the movie never says, “this is why he did it.”

And I really appreciated that.

Shailene Woodley was great, like always. Alexander Ludwig was awesome to see. Russell Crowe was really effective as Murray because by the end I wanted to smack him.

But Jacob Tremblay absolutely stole this movie for me. I genuinely cannot wait to see what else he does.

Unabomber was intense, creepy, smart and way better than I expected it to be.

Nicely done.

Official image credit: Philippe Bosse/Netflix.