Amir Bar-Lev directed this disquieting documentary, centered on the family of Marla Olmstead, a four-year-old girl who became a media sensation in 2004, when her abstract paintings began to sell for thousands of dollars.
When Bar-Lev asks Laura and Mark point-blank whether they might have helped Marla a little and got in over their heads, their straight-faced reactions, ending with Laura in tears, do less to alleviate doubts than to add a layer of discomfort, which is all the more dismaying because no one wins.