SUBURBAN FURY A FILM BY ROBINSON DEVOR | 120 min. | USA | 2024
About
Suburban Fury is a riveting portrait of a woman caught in the political and psychological crosswinds of a divided nation. At once are stranger-than-fiction true story, an intimate character study, and a searing reflection of America’s ongoing ideological rupture, the film centers on Sara Jane Moore — a single mother from the conservative suburbs of San Francisco who, in 1975, attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford, the President of the United States.
But this is more than a historical account. It’s a meditation on truth, memory, and the socio-political forces that drive individuals to the brink. Moore’s story is not just remarkable — it’s eerily prescient. Long before political violence became a daily part of the American news cycle, her case revealed the psychological undercurrents that still shape our national psyche. This isn’t just a story about a bygone era. It’s about right now.
Structured around exclusive access to Moore — one of the only people in American history to attempt to kill a sitting president and live to tell the story — the film unfolds through a haunting first-person monologue, filmed in the very Bay Area locations where her transformation occurred. Her recollections are visceral, often contradictory, and chillingly candid. The film examines extremism from the inside out — showing how personal wounds and political fracture lines can combust into violence.
Moore’s transformation — from patriotic do-gooder and FBI informant to disillusioned radical with a loaded gun — foreshadows the ideological whiplash of our own time: Obama voters turning to Trump, centrists driven to the fringe, everyday citizens convinced the system is rigged by a shadowy elite. Her descent foreshadows the patterns we now see in online rabbit holes, conspiracy theories, and the resurgence of domestic extremism, revealing a deeper truth: radicalization isn’t happening “over there” — it’s happening in our own backyards. It could happen to you.
As Moore reflects on her radicalization, the film interweaves rare archival footage and stunning cinematography with a stylized, imagined dialogue between her and her FBI handler, blurring the boundaries between memory and accountability. Suburban Fury explores the fragile terrain where ideology and identity intersect — and how forces like class, gender, power, and disillusionment can collide in a single person with explosive consequences. The result is a psychological and political thriller in documentary form: intimate, morally complex, and deeply unsettling.
With the 50th anniversary of the assassination attempt in September 2025, Suburban Fury resonates urgently in an era of global unrest and democratic backsliding. As political violence escalates and Americans across the spectrum lose faith in institutions, Moore’s story becomes a mirror. It speaks to how radicalization takes root — not in the abstract, but in ordinary homes, quiet suburbs, and people who once seemed entirely unremarkable.
Suburban Fury offers no easy answers — only a singular, chilling vantage point from inside a fractured mind, and a fractured country.
"A captivating documentary thriller. An incredibly cinematic and high-energy viewing experience.”
"A rapt documentary thriller.”
"Riveting. Bursting with the energy of the archives and the thrill of a narrator who can’t quite be trusted.”
"'Suburban Fury' does that rare thing and offers a highly specific motivation for Moore’s infamous crime… Holds you with a kind of rapt tension.”
"Nothing short of riveting, excavating a strange, compelling story from the footnotes of history..."
