Yet except for a couple of movie critics, none of the would-be Karla censors have even seen the movie.

Yesterday, I ran an excerpt of Montreal writer Matthew Hays' exclusive Karla review for CBC. Today, I'm reprinting an even more in-depth critique of the film byThe Globe and Mail's Simon Houpt.

His opinion is that overall, Karla is not the flash and trash flick some would have us believe. But it is too sympathetic to Karla.

By Simon Houpt

New York — Karla Homolka herself may not object much to the new true-crime drama about her and Paul Bernardo that a Los Angeles-based producer is currently fighting to bring into Canada.

An unfinished cut of Karla presents Homolka as a physically and psychologically battered woman who is so afraid of losing her boyfriend-then-husband that she willingly if not willfully accedes to his increasingly depraved demands. Only when she finds herself perilously close to becoming another of Bernardo's murder victims does Homolka flee their home and turn state's evidence.

A copy of the film, which is still a work-in-progress lacking a music soundtrack and a final mix of the dialogue, was obtained yesterday by The Globe and Mail from the film's producer.

Karla unfolds as a series of flashbacks that spin out of a fictionalized version of a psychiatric assessment that took place in 2000, during a bid by Homolka for parole after she had served only eight years of her 12-year sentence. It notes that, after that request for parole failed, Homolka did not again submit to any voluntary psychiatric assessments.

The film strives for a dissonance between its portrayal of Homolka-as-victim during the period that Bernardo was on his killing and raping spree, and the psychiatric evaluation many years later, during which Homolka is a calm and controlled woman spinning her self-justifying and self-delusional version of the murderous events that led to her incarceration.

And while Laura Prepon is convincing as both battered victim and spinner, the inherently emotional nature of watching a woman who is utterly lacking in self-esteem submit herself to the whims of a sadist may prompt more sympathy for Homolka than the filmmakers intend.

Most of the time in the film, Homolka is a mere witness to Bernardo's horrifying assaults, standing by guiltily, either unwilling or unable to do anything to stop them.

Still, the film subtly notes that, when faced with the horrifying consequences of her actions, Homolka is concerned only with self-preservation. Moments after she learns of the death of her sister Tammy, even as she is wiping away tears, she quietly asks Bernardo where he'd put the videotape he made of the incident. Later on, as she broaches the possibility of turning Bernardo in to the authorities, she asks a lawyer, "If I help, can you get me immunity?"

But Karla may as well be called Karla and Paul, for its focus is on the criminally dysfunctional development of their violent, abusive relationship.

It traces the couple from their first meeting in the bar of a Toronto hotel, where the 18-year-old, ponytail-wearing Homolka is attending a veterinary conference, to the last moments they see each other, as they face off at Bernardo's trial, where he is convicted of 12 counts of rape and two counts of murder for the deaths of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.

The film makes clear that, while profoundly unhealthy, the couple's embrace of the dark side began in earnest only when Homolka drugged her sister Tammy and presented her to Bernardo in a perverted attempt to please the boyfriend she feared she was losing. After Tammy's accidental death, Bernardo uses Homolka's guilt to force her to accept his increasingly brazen criminal behaviour.

At one point, before he abducts Leslie Mahaffy (here called Leah McCarthy), Homolka confronts Bernardo when he drags himself home early one morning. "I just raped a girl," he tells her. She responds by desperately clinging to Bernardo, kissing him and telling him that she just wants to make him happy.

Later, he becomes laughably cavalier about his extracurricular activities. Grabbing some nylon stockings for a disguise as he heads out the door one night, leaving Homolka home alone, he says, "I'm going out with some friends. Taking these, just in case."

Those concerned about exploitation and gratuitous titillation may be relieved to know that the film, which has the feel of a movie-of-the-week, is sombre and directed with restraint. The production qualities are professional and polished.

Nudity is all but absent, and the murders and rapes take place largely off-screen. French and Mahaffy are given pseudonyms. Indeed, the only woman abused at length on screen is Homolka herself, who in the film's final act submits to prolonged sexual humiliation at Bernardo's hands.

The film will likely prompt wildly disparate responses from Canadian and American audiences. Canadians may find even common moments creepy, as when Misha Collins sits down next to Prepon, turns on a charming smile and says, "Hi. I'm Paul Bernardo."

But for a film that centres on a psychiatric evaluation, Karla is void of most of the psychological insight and answers about motivation that audiences might desire. In the final minutes, the psychiatrist and Homolka share a brief rueful moment after she has recounted a one-night affair she had with a man after leaving Bernardo.

"Why, Karla?" asks the psychiatrist. "Why not?" she replies, giving an answer that may just symbolize her entire approach to life.