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Hulu's Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence is a breathtaking exploration of cultish influence and abuse.
By Alec Bojalad | |
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This article contains spoilers for Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence.
When news first broke in 2020 that a man named Larry Ray had been arrested for operating a sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College, the casual news observer could be forgiven for finding the ensuing headlines slightly humorous at first.
The existence of a hippie sex cult would be in keeping with some prevailing stereotypes attached to the prestigious college in Yonkers, New York. Originally a women’s institution of higher learning, Sarah Lawrence became coeducational in 1968 and has since developed a reputation for its wealthy, creative, socially liberal, and generally “out there” student body.
Of all the colleges in the United States, of course the libertines at Sarah Lawrence would be the ones to “yes and” themselves into a sex cult. But as more bits of information began to trickle out it began to become clear that there was a vast gap between what “Sarah Lawrence sex cult” meant in the popular imagination and what it meant in it grim reality. As evidenced by the excellent journalistic work in sources like The Cut (which is responsible for the brilliant article that inspired Netflix’s The Watcher), the real story of cerebral con artist Larry Ray and the young people he victimized is truly dark and traumatic stuff.
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That story now gets the full true crime documentary treatment in Hulu’s three-episode series Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence. Directed by Zachary Heinzerling (McCartney 3,2,1) Stolen Youth is the best true crime docuseries that the streaming world has produced in a long time. More than mere documentary, it’s an insightful sociological exploration of how the human brain can be manipulated into a false reality. It has as much in common with HBO’s conspiracy docuseries Q: Into the Storm as it does with its true crime peers.
Like NXIVM docuseries The Vow before it, Stolen Youth is blessed with an abundance of upsetting, yet enlightening footage (why are cult leaders always filming shit?) into a group of people’s descent into cult-like thinking under influence of a charismatic leader. Unlike The Vow, however, Stolen Youth knows exactly what to do with it – cutting it all down into roughly three hours of only the essential bits. Those essential bits include the arrival of several young people to college, the imposition of their friend’s weird father into their life, and his subsequent hijacking of their young minds.
Stolen Youth tells the story of how cultish indoctrination begins and ends far better than we can articulate here (so please just watch it) but the long and short of it is that one day a group of friends living at Slonim Woods 9 on Sarah Lawrence’s campus get some unusual news from their friend Talia Ray. She says that her father is getting out of prison (for crimes he didn’t commit naturally) and he’ll need a place to crash. Since college life tends to be a perpetual state of surreality anyway, none of her roommates object to a 50-year-old man crashing on their couch for awhile.
Larry arrives at Slonim Woods 9 with a hulking physical frame, a sharp Brooklyn accent, and many wild stories about his decorated career as a government agent. It doesn’t take long before Larry establishes himself as an imposing presence in the house: cooking dinners, leading philosophical seminars, and eventually establishing a grueling routine of chores and physical self-improvement. With his charges impressionable brains well in hand, Larry then gets to work isolating them from their family and friends by implanting false memories of neglect and abuse, all the while preying on typical youthful insecurities.
Stolen Youth‘s best skill is its careful ability to present the perverted logic in Ray’s escalating tactics. Like the old adage of a frog in a boiling pot, the Sarah Lawrence College students acclimate to the weirdness around them gradually. It starts with the reasonable (welcoming a roommate’s 50-year-old father to live at your home) to the less reasonable but still understandable (he makes your meals) to the less reasonable but still understandable (he expresses an interest in your mental health) to the less reasonable but still understandable (he institutes a chore schedule). And then before you know it, you’re fully under this man’s thrall and part of his years-long war against former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
That’s the other interesting thing about Stolen Youth: how it approaches the monster at its center. Like other docuseries of its ilk, Stolen Youth wisely decides to save its most attention and empathy for the victims at play, while not wasting too much time trying to psychoanalyze the man who hurt them. And to be clear, there is a lot to unpack when it comes to Larry Ray. A narcissistic nesting doll of paranoid delusions, Ray has all manner of strange idiosyncrasies, fears, and grudges (like his aforementioned beef with Kerik). It’s never quite clear just how much effort Ray puts into manipulating and corrupting his charges or if their indoctrinations are merely the byproduct of his twisted psyche. By presenting Larry simply as he is alongside his victim’s recollections of him, Stolen Youth soon resembles an intensely scientific study about the effects of charismatic coercion on the human brain. It’s like seeing Milgram’s Stanford Prison Experiment for the first time (except it’s presumably not bullshit this time).
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More than being a mere case study, however, Stolen Youth truly captures the human devastation left behind by cult indoctrination. The series third and final episode, “Larryland,” presents the full stories of the two women who Ray had the tightest hold on: Felicia Rosario and Isabella Pollok. Of the two, only Felicia had found her way out of Ray’s influence during the time of filming (Isabella remains a Larry supporter and in Sept. 2022 pled guilty to money laundering as part of Ray’s larger case). As such, the documentarians get a privileged look into her programming and deprogramming.
Felicia was brought into “Larryland” by her brother Santos, who was living with Larry in a 93rd Street Manhattan apartment. When Felicia, a Harvard graduate with a medical degree from Columbia, embarked to Los Angeles to begin her residency at a hospital, Ray called her every day to keep her up in the late hours of the night with discussions about philosophy and her own personal history. Ultimately, Felicia came to be brainwashed by the cult leader remotely and began to believe her family had poisoned her and were sending agents of the state to finish off the job. She returned to the East Coast to live with Ray and his remaining acolytes.
To its credit, Stolen Youth begins every episode with the content warning: “The following program contains themes of suicidal ideation, abuse, sexual violence, coercive control, and drug use.”Still, you wish they somehow found a way to articulate that it also concluded “the complete degradation of the human psyche into a primitive, animalistic sate” as well because that’s what Felicia experiences upon returning to New York.
The footage presents from this time in the Ray saga is almost unbearably disturbing. Severely underweight and traumatized from the stress she’s endured (and the loss of her medical degree), Felicia takes to having child-like screaming fits. As Ray violently restrains her, she screams alternatively “I love you, Larry!” and “Larry, get off of me!” Later on, Felicia finds herself unable to even be away from Ray, wandering into his personal space and muttering “I don’t want to back up, I want to be next to you. Because it makes me feel better, Larry.”
As a healthier Felicia tells the documentarians after she’s escaped “He took away my career, my friends, my family. He took every piece of me away. All that was left of me was him.” It’s one thing to confront the tremendously upsetting implications of the words “All that was left of me was him” and really turn them over in your mind. It’s another thing entirely to see them play out so exactly in practice. The footage depicts a thoroughly broken human being who really is nothing but a zombie for Larry Ray. Ray’s ability to take out the reality he didn’t need from a person’s brain and replace with the reality he preferred is profoundly chilling.
Even later on as Felicia recovers, bits of her “Larryland” conditioning remain present.
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“Do you remember meeting Bernard Kerik?” an off-camera voice asks Felicia, who, to be clear: obviously has never met disgraced New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
“When I was little, yeah,” she responds.
“Is there any way that’s not true?”
“That’s unlikely … you see where I am now. What’s real?”
Thankfully the last episode of Stolen Youth eventually documents Felicia’s full recovery and her reunion with her parents and two siblings. It also reveals that on Jan. 20, 2023, Ray was found guilty on all 15 counts facing him and has been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison without the possibility of parole.
Stolen Youth doesn’t delve into the upsetting details of Felicia’s experience for exploitative entertainment purposes. It does so so that viewers can better understand its subjects’ plight. In that way it universalizes what at first seems to be an intensely provincial story about impressionable kids in an open, permitting collegiate environment. Most true crime documentaries make their viewers confront and accept the fact that a stranger can take their life. Stolen Youth has the much harder task of making us understand a stranger can take our mind. And it does exactly that.
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All three episodes of Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence are available to stream on Hulu now.
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Tags: DocumentariesHuluTrue Crime
Written by
Alec Bojalad| @alecbojalad
TV Editor at Den of Geek and Television Critics Association member. Based in Cleveland, Ohio. Very upset about various sporting events.
Read more from Alec Bojalad
FAQs
What is the documentary like Stolen Youth? ›
Sex, Lies and the College Cult is a 1.5 hour documentary while Stolen Youth is a multi-episode experience. With Stolen Youth, you feel the decade these kids lost in their lives. Sex, Lies and the College Cult mostly focuses on Larry's ridiculous lies and the people he used to receive free housing.
What is the cult docuseries 2023? ›NEW YORK, NY – (March 27, 2023) – CNN will air a special presentation of the HBO Max Original Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults. The docuseries, produced by CNN Original Series, will broadcast the first episode on Sunday, April 4 at 10pm ET/PT and the following three episodes will regularly air on Sundays at 10pm ET/PT.
What is the movie Stolen Youth about? ›STOLEN YOUTH: INSIDE THE CULT AT SARAH LAWRENCE is a three-part docuseries about the way a convicted felon controlled a group of college students' lives, and how they survived the experience.
What is the documentary about the Sarah Lawrence cult? ›Storyline. Follow the shocking and unnerving story of Larry Ray and how he brainwashed students of Sarah Lawrence College into an abusive sex cult that upended their lives, and the lives of their families.
Is Stolen Youth Based on a true story? ›Hulu's new docuseries 'Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence' is based on a horrifying true story. The latest Hulu true crime docuseries tackles the case of Larry Ray and a group of students at Sarah Lawrence College.
Where can I watch the stolen documentary? ›Watch The Stolen | Netflix.
What is the cult movie on Hulu 2023? ›Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence will premiere on Feb. 9, debuting a look at survivors of the college's sex cult formed by parent Larry Ray. The three-part documentary will shine a light on victims trying to heal from Ray's “psychological prison.”
What is the new cult documentary on Hulu? ›The new Hulu docuseries Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence tells the story of the survivors of Larry Ray.
What is the new Netflix documentary about religious cult? ›Netflix documentary 'In the Name of God' exposes dark side of cult leaders | Yonhap News Agency.
Is Stolen Youth hard to watch? ›Documentaries about cults are never breezy affairs, but Stolen Youth is a particularly tough watch. In addition to showing the students enduring hard labor, emotional torment, and physical punishment, the archival footage also offers a distressing and vivid picture of their mental and emotional deterioration.
What is the story behind the Stolen Youth on Hulu? ›
A group of bright Sarah Lawrence College students fall under the dark influence of a friend's father, Larry Ray. With unprecedented access to the survivors who lived with Ray, the film follows the cult from its origins through its still-unfolding aftermath.
What happens at the end of Stolen Youth? ›Thankfully the last episode of Stolen Youth eventually documents Felicia's full recovery and her reunion with her parents and two siblings. It also reveals that on Jan. 20, 2023, Ray was found guilty on all 15 counts facing him and has been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison without the possibility of parole.
What is the Netflix show about the poly cult? ›Watch Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey | Netflix Official Site.
What is the Netflix show about the cult in New York? ›Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence is a three-episode docuseries that portrays the origins and goings-on of a sex cult at the liberal arts college in New York.
What is the name of the documentary on Hulu about the woman cult leader? ›The Deep End Trailer
A look inside the world of one of today's most controversial spiritual teachers and her dedicated followers.
- Larry Ray, Cult leader who lived on the campus with his daughter Talia in 2008. ...
- Talia Ray, Larry's daughter who attended Sarah Lawrence College.
- Santos, A former boyfriend of Talia and roommate with Larry.
- Felicia, Santos' oldest sister.
- Isabella Pollok, Talia's roommate and best friend at the time.
Isabella Pollok, a member of the Sarah Lawrence sex cult featured in the Hulu docuseries “Stolen Youth,” was sentenced Wednesday to 54 months in federal prison. Pollok, 31, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit money laundering, avoiding a trial.
What did Larry do in Stolen Youth? ›Last month, Ray was sentenced to 60 years in prison for racketeering, extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor, tax evasion and money laundering offenses.
Does Netflix have documentary? ›Netflix documentaries are among the best in the business, but with so many to choose from, it can be tough to make a selection. From new documentaries on Netflix to jaw-dropping documentaries that made a splash years ago, there's a lot of great stuff on the platform.
Where to watch a documentary? ›- Kanopy. Best for Educational and Family Content. ...
- Netflix. Best for Blockbuster Documentaries. ...
- CuriosityStream. Best for HD & 4K Documentaries. ...
- Hulu. Best for Celebrity Biopics and Entertainment Insiders. ...
- Amazon Prime Video. Best for Political Documentaries. ...
- History Vault. ...
- MagellanTV. ...
- PBS Documentaries.
Where can I watch the documentary on the record? ›
On the Record | HBO Max Originals.
What is the Netflix show about a girl leaving a cult? ›Determined to protect a young patient who escaped a mysterious cult, a psychiatrist takes the girl in, putting her own family — and life — in danger.
What is the Netflix special about a cult in Oregon? ›Wild Wild Country is a Netflix documentary series about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), his one-time personal assistant Ma Anand Sheela, and their community of followers in the Rajneeshpuram community located in Wasco County, Oregon, US.
What is the new Hulu series about religion? ›During one of the many Mormon history lessons padding the lining of Hulu's true-crime drama, “Under the Banner of Heaven,” a once-devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explains what motivated Joseph Smith to found his religion in the first place: It was for love.
What is the Hulu documentary about brainwashing? ›Yalitza Rosario discusses being brainwashed by Larry Ray on “Stolen Youth.”
How many episodes of Stolen Youth will there be? ›All three episodes of Stolen Youth are available to stream on Hulu, but if you're looking for more details on what happened, here's everything we know about Hulu's Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence.
What is the religion documentary on Hulu? ›Hulu's newly released documentary, “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” does not hold back in its direct and dirty exposure of conservative evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr. “God Forbid” details an affair that began in March 2012 between former pool attendant Giancarlo Granda and Falwell's wife Becki.
What is the Netflix series in church abuse? ›This docuseries examines the decades-old murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik and its suspected link to a priest accused of abuse. Watch all you want.
What is the documentary on Netflix about a megachurch? ›Although members of the Greenleaf family run a Memphis megachurch, their business and personal lives are tainted with greed, adultery and other sins. Watch all you want. This drama's premiere on the Oprah Winfrey Network drew 3.04 million viewers -- more than any other OWN show till then.
What is the Netflix series about church scandal? ›Allegations of child sexual abuse in Spain's Catholic institutions are examined in interviews with survivors, clergy, journalists and other experts. Watch all you want.
What kind of school is Sarah Lawrence? ›
Sarah Lawrence is a prestigious, residential, coeducational liberal arts college.
Who is Larry Ray's daughter? ›Talia Ray is the daughter of Larry Ray.
Where can I watch Stolen Youth in the UK? ›Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence | Apple TV (UK)
How many episodes are there of stolen youth on Hulu? ›“Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence” will launch all three episodes on Hulu on Thursday, February 9.
Where did Stolen Youth take place? ›After Talia's sophomore year, Ray moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a Manhattan high-rise with five students from Sarah Lawrence, including Talia and her then boyfriend, Santos, and a sixth, who would later join from Columbia University.
What is the Hulu show about a boy who went missing? ›Siblings Ashley and Steven Stayner Jr. never knew their famous father Steven, the child victim of a shocking California kidnapping, who tragically died in an accident when they were young. In 1972, seven-year-old Steven went to school – and never came home.
What was Isabella's sentence in stolen youth? ›Isabella Pollok, a member of the Sarah Lawrence sex cult featured in the Hulu docuseries “Stolen Youth,” was sentenced Wednesday to 54 months in federal prison. Pollok, 31, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit money laundering, avoiding a trial.
Is Sarah Lawrence a good school? ›Sarah Lawrence College Rankings
Sarah Lawrence College is ranked #72 out of 210 National Liberal Arts Colleges. Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence. Read more about how we rank schools.
Felicia Rosario is now back on her feet and gainfully employed. Per Felicia's LinkedIn page, she's currently working as a senior associate at the Princeton Consultants firm, after starting in July 2022.
What is the new Netflix series about child abduction? ›Watch Abducted in Plain Sight | Netflix.
What is the Netflix show about child abduction? ›
Netflix released a new season of "Unsolved Mysteries" last year with an episode centered on parental abductions.
What is the Netflix series about child abduction? ›'Unsolved Mysteries' Volume 3: 'Abducted by a Parent' - Netflix Tudum.
What is the documentary about child offenders? ›"Kids Behind Bars: Life or Parole" tells the individual stories of eight previously convicted child offenders sentenced to mandatory life terms, without parole, who are now seeking resentencing on the heels of a recent United States Supreme Court ruling.
Did Netflix remove abduction? ›Cleveland Abduction is not currently available on Netflix in the U.S., but it is available to rent or buy via Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
What is the new kidnapping show 2023? ›Alert: Missing Persons Unit (TV Series 2023– ) - IMDb.
Does Netflix have the movie abduction? ›After uncovering a shocking secret about his past, a teenager caught up in a clash between intelligence agents and terrorists fights for his life. Watch all you want.
What is the show on Hulu about a kidnapped child? ›Now Streaming
Siblings Ashley and Steven Stayner Jr. never knew their famous father Steven, the child victim of a shocking California kidnapping, who tragically died in an accident when they were young. In 1972, seven-year-old Steven went to school – and never came home.
Trailer: 'Still Missing Morgan'
Patty's son, Jacob, was kidnapped six years before Morgan. When the Morgan Nick case is reexamined in 2020, a documentary crew was there with the new investigators - leading to the first dramatic shift in the investigation in 25 years.
In 1976, the first of four children is abducted and murdered in the suburbs of Detroit. After more than 30 years the families of the four murdered children and Detroiters like J. Reuben Appelman are determined to find the Oakland County Child Killer.
What is the Netflix movie where the girl gets kidnapped and falls in love? ›Massimo is a member of the Sicilian Mafia family and Laura is a sales director. She does not expect that on a trip to Sicily trying to save her relationship, Massimo will kidnap her and give her 365 days to fall in love with him.
What is the movie where the girl gets kidnapped and has a son? ›
...
Room (2015 film)
| Room | |
|---|---|
| Box office | $36.3 million |
The four-part docuseries is called “Missing: Dead or Alive?” Each episode walks viewers through a different case. RCSD investigator Vicki Rains, who was featured in the series, spoke with WIS about investigating a missing person's case.
What is the documentary on Netflix about the mother who killed her children? ›When Lori Vallow's kids vanished, the search for them unearthed a trail of suspicious deaths, a new husband who shared her doomsday views — and murder. Watch all you want. A riveting documentary series from Skye Borgman, acclaimed director of "Abducted in Plain Sight" and "Girl in the Picture."
What is the documentary on Netflix about dad killing kids? ›American Murder: The Family Next Door.
Where can I watch the kids documentary? ›- What to Watch New.
- Peacock.
- Vudu.
- Netflix streaming.
- iTunes.
- Amazon and amazon prime.
- Most popular TV.